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GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 


"-^v 


COPYRIGHT^  1909,  BY  FRANCIS  G.  ALLIMSON 
AND  ANNE  C.  K.  ALLINSON 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 

Published  Deeemier  rgog 


-■'■'»*'  >'•  '  ,,'^5^..* 


»"  ?      ■•    -.* 


SECOND  IMPRESSION,  REVISED 


TO 

A.C.  E. 

AND 

S.  C.  A. 


361252 


PREFACE 

THE  purpose  of  this  book  is  to  interpret  Greek 
lands  by  literature,  and  Greek  literature  by 
local  associations  and  the  physical  environ- 
ment. Those  who  possess  an  intimate  acquaintance 
with  Greek  or  who  have  the  good  fortune  to  stay  long  in 
Greece  will  be  able  to  draw  upon  their  own  resources. 
Many  travellers,  however,  must  curtail  their  visit  to  a 
few  weeks  or  months,  and  it  is  hoped  that  to  them  this 
book  may  prove  useful  as  a  companion  in  travel,  while 
to  a  wider  range  of  readers  it  may  prove  suggestive  in 
appraising  what  is  most  vital  in  our  "Hellenic  heri- 
tage." 

To  keep  within  reasonable  bounds  it  has  seemed 
necessary  to  limit  our  survey  to  those  portions  of  the 
mainland  of  Greece  and  those  islands,  immediately 
adjacent  in  the  Gulf  of  ^Egina,  which  may  be  easily 
visited  during  a  short  stay  in  Athens  as  headquarters. 
But  the  visitor  cannot  be  too  strongly  urged  to  avail 
himself  of  opportunities  to  visit  the  remoter  islands 
and  the  shores  of  Asia  Minor,  which  are  so  beautiful  a 
part  of  the  Greek  world  and  have  played  so  brilliant 
a  r61e  in  Greek  history  and  literature. 

In  quoting  or  summarizing  the  literature  the  limita- 
tions of  space  are  obvious.  Selections  have  been  made 


viii  PREFACE 

which  to  us  seemed  most  fairly  to  interpret  the  coun- 
tries and  sites.  It  is  hoped  that  these  will  not  only 
prove  representative  when  taken  together  but  will 
recall  much  that  has  perforce  been  omitted. 

Purely  learned  treatises  in  Greek  have  not  been  cited 
except  by  way  of  illustration.  The  historical  geographer 
Strabo,  of  the  time  of  Augustus,  has  offered  suggestive 
material ;  and  Pausanias,  of  the  second  century  of  our 
era,  the  pious  and  often  charming  writer  of  the  "  Guide- 
book to  Greece,"  has,  as  was  inevitable,  been  the 
cicerone  in  many  places. 

History  it  has  seemed  proper  to  use  chiefly  to  explain 
the  literature,  or,  especially  in  the  case  of  Herodotus 
and  Thucydides,  as  itself  part  of  the  noblest  prose  liter- 
ature. But  in  different  chapters  emphasis  has  been  laid, 
to  some  extent,  upon  different  elements,  such  as  myth 
and  legend,  prehistoric  tradition,  the  history  of  certain 
epochs  in  classic  times,  the  demands  of  religion,  the 
growth  of  the  artistic  impulse  or  the  bloom  of  the  Attic 
period.  By  this  means  we  have  hoped,  without  too 
much  repetition,  to  suggest  a  fairly  adequate  outline  of 
the  different  factors  in  Greek  civilization.  The  intro- 
ductory chapter  is  intended  to  pro\ide  the  essential 
background  for  the  others. 

Forms  of  art  other  than  literature  are  only  inciden- 
tally touched  upon.  Archaeological  information  or  dis- 
cussion, except  as  illustration,  is  precluded  by  the  pur- 
pose of  the  book,  which  deals  with  the  literature  and 
the  land  as  being  permanent  possessions  that  are  not 


PREFACE  ix 

essentially  modified  by  the  successive  data  of  archae- 
ology, necessarily  shifting  from  month  to  month. 

In  translating  Greek  authors  it  has  seemed  best,  as  a 
rule,  to  offer  new  versions,  rendering  the  thought  as 
literally  as  is  consistent  with  our  idiom  or,  in  the  case 
of  poetry,  with  the  exigencies  of  English  verse.  The 
anapaestic  dimeters  and,  in  the  dialogue  parts  of  the 
drama,  the  six-stress  iambic  verse  have  been  retained; 
less  uniformly  the  elegiac  couplet;  and,  occasionally 
only,  the  heroic  hexameter.  Elsewhere  poetry  has  been 
usually  turned  by  rhymed  verse  or  by  rhythmic  prose. 

Some  existing  translations  or  paraphrases  have  been 
used,  for  which  credit  has  been  given  in  the  text  or  the 
footnotes.  Moreover,  in  most  of  the  citations  from  Pau- 
sanias  Mr.  Frazer's  admirable  translation  has  been  used 
without  explicit  mention,  and  for  this  we  make  acknow- 
ledgment here.  In  translating  Pindar  many  turns  of 
expression  have  been  taken  from  the  beautiful  trans- 
lation of  Ernest  Myers,  although,  when  they  are  not 
expressly  credited,  the  versions  have  been  rewritten. 
While  it  is  hoped  that  full  credit  has  thus  been  given 
wherever  it  is  due,  there  are  doubtless  expressions  here 
and  there  remaining  in  the  memory  from  numerous 
commentators  on  Greek  authors  that  form  a  common 
stock  in  trade  for  the  translator. 

In  transliterating  Greek  names  we  have  followed,  as 
a  rule,  familiar  English  usage. 

Among  many  books  of  reference  there  are  a  few  to 
which  we  are  especially  indebted. .  We  have  used  con- 


X  PREFACE 

stantly  Mr.  J.  G.  Frazer's  "Commentary  on  Pausa- 
nias,"  which  includes  a  wealth  of  outside  references,  as, 
for  example,  citations  from  other  travellers  beginning 
with  Dicaearchus,  the  entertaining  geographer  of  the 
fourth  century  b.  c.  We  are  also  indebted  to  Curtius's 
"History  of  Greece"  and  Tozer's  "Geography  of 
Greece" ;  Dr.  W.  Judeich's  "Topographic  von  Athen" 
(especially  for  Piraeus);  Professor  Ernest  Gardner's 
"Ancient  Athens,"  which  should  be  in  the  hands  of 
every  visitor  to  Athens;  and  Miss  J.  E.  Harrison's 
"  Primitive  Athens."  Professor  J.  B.  Bury's  "  History  of 
Greece"  has  been  constantly  suggestive.  On  modem 
Greece  Schmidt's  "Das  Volksleben  der  Neugriechen" 
and  Sir  Rennell  Rodd's  "  Customs  and  Lore  of  Modem 
Greece"  have  furnished  definite  material. 

Among  the  numerous  editions  of  Greek  authors 
necessarily  consulted  we  are  under  special  obligations 
to  Professor  Gildersleeve's  "  Pindar,  the  Olympian  and 
Pythian  Odes,"  and  to  Professor  Smyth's  "Melic 
Poets."  Certain  quotations  in  the  text,  not  provided 
for  in  the  footnotes,  are  acknowledged  in  the  Appendix, 
in  which  are  also  given,  for  the  sake  of  comparison, 
exact  references  to  the  Greek. 

Our  personal  thanks  are  due  to  Professor  J.  Irving 
Manatt,  of  Brown  University,  for  valuable  suggestions 
and  criticism  of  several  chapters,  and  to  Professor 
Walter  G.  Everett  for  his  discussion  of  the  section  on 
Greek  philosophy.  We  are  also  especially  indebted 
to  Professor  Herbert  Richard  Cross  of  Washington 


PREFACE  xi 

University,  St.  Louis,  for  placing  at  our  disposal  his 
water-colour  sketch  of  the  Propylaea,  from  which  the 
frontispiece  is  taken,  and  to  Professors  C.  B.  Gulick 
and  G.  H.  Chase  of  Harvard  University  for  assistance 
in  obtaining  the  impression  of  the  coin  upon  the  cover 
of  this  book. 

F.  G.  A; 

A.  C.  E.  A. 

Providence,  October,  1909. 


CONTENTS 

I.  The  Widespread  Land  of  Hellas  i 

II.  PiR^us,  THE  Harbour  Town  32 

III.  Athens:  From  Solon  to  Salamis  57 

IV.  The  Acropolis  of  Athens  74 
V.  Athens:  From  Salamis  to  Menander  91 

VI.  Old  Greece  in  New  Athens  126 

VII.  Attica  144 

VIII.  Eleusis  171 

IX.    iEciNA  186 

X.  Megara  and  Corinth  :  The  Gulf  of  Corinth  192 

XI.  Delphi  218 

XII.  From  Delphi  to  Thebes  250 

XIII.  Thebes  AND  Bceotia  266 

XIV.  Bceotia,  continued  296 
XV.  Thermopylae  316 

XVI.  Argolis  -323 

XVII.  Arcadia  358 

XVIII.  Olympia  388 

XIX.  Messenia  425 

XX.  Sparta  431 

Appendix  453 

Index  463 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  Propyl^a  Frontispiece 

From  within  looking  toward  Salamis 
From  a  painting  by  H.  R.  Cross 

Map  of  Greece  and  the  ^Egean  i 

'Map  of  PiRiEus  •  32 

Colonnade  of  the  "Theseum"  94 

From  a  photograph  by  R.  A.  Rice 

Areopagus  *o4 

Street  of  the  Tombs  ~  114 

Monument  of  Hegeso 

After  Polygnotus     '  I34 

The   PANATHENiEA   CONTINUED  *  134 

Map  of  Attica  ,  I44 

Menander  152 

From  bust  in  Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts 

SUNIUM  162 

Temple  of  Poseidon.    From  a  photograph  by  S.  C.  A. 

Olive  Trees  on  the  way  to  Eleusis  178 

From  a  photograph  by  E.  G.  Radeke 


xvi  ILLUSTRATIONS 

iEGINA  1 88 

Temple  of  Aphaea 

Corinth  202 

Temple  of  Apollo  and  Acrocorinth 

Delphi  and  the  Road  to  Arachova  250 

Map  of  Bceotia  266 

A  Gallery  of  the  Acropolis  of  Tiryns  324 

Calauria  356 

Temple  of  Poseidon.   Scene  of  the  death  of  Demosthenes 

Olympia  388 

Kronos  Hill.    The  ruins  of  the  Altis 

Taygetus  432 


Nike  of  Samothrace,  reproduced  on  the  front  cover,  is 
from  a  coin  in  the  Fogg  Art  Museum,  Harvard  University. 


GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 


GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTORY  I    THE   WIDESPREAD   LAND    OF 
HELLAS 

Greek  literature  is  read  by  almost  all  nations. 

Cicero,  Pro  Archia. 

CICERO,  at  one  time  studying  Greek  oratory  in 
Rhodes,  at  another  speaking  Greek  as  the 
language  best  adapted  to  a  Sicilian  audience, 
suggests  with  sufficient  definiteness  the  eastern  and 
western  boundaries  of  ancient  Hellas.  Leaving  out  of 
consideration  more  remote  colonies,  we  may  content 
ourselves  with  including  in  the  Greater  Greece  of  an- 
tiquity all  the  Mediterranean  lands  and  waters  from 
Sicily  and  Lower  Italy,  in  the  west,  to  Cyprus  and  the 
coast  of  Asia  Minor,  in  the  east.  The  Riviera,  or  sea- 
board of  the  eastern  side  of  the  ^gean,  is  sharply  dif- 
ferentiated from  the  continuous  highlands  of  the  inte- 
rior, which  suggest,  a  short  distance  inland,  a  boundary 
line  between  Europe  and  Asia.  For  a  maritime  people 
like  the  Greeks  this  was  a  barrier  more  effectual  than 
the  highway  of  the  Bosphorus.  In  the  early  historic 
times,  when  the  sun  rose  over  these  mountains  of  Asia 
Minor  he  left  behind  him  the  Oriental  and  looked  down 


2  GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

at  once  upon  the  Cis-montane  Greeks,  and  it  was  upon 
Greeks  that  he  was  still  shining  when  his  setting  splen- 
dour lit  up  the  Bay  of  Naples  —  the  "New-town"  of 
that  day  —  or  the  ancient  Cumae  and  the  heights  of 
Anacapri  or  the  islands  of  the  Sirens  and  the  golden 
brown  columns  of  Poseidon's  temple  at  Paestum. 

The  seaboard,  too,  of  Macedonia  and  Thrace  be- 
longed to  Greece  by  reason  of  their  water-front  on  the 
iEgean.  And  to  the  south,  the  encroachments  of  the 
Greeks  upon  the  preserves  of  the  Nile-god  were  so  ex- 
tensive for  centuries  before  the  time  of  Alexander  that 
we  need  not  wonder  either  at  Egyptian  reminiscences 
in  Greek  art  or  at  the  increasing  evidences  of  Hellenic 
life  in  Egypt. 

The  Greeks,  compared  with  the  hoary  antiquity  of 
the  Egyptians,  are  late  comers.  The  essential  differ- 
ence, however,  is  not  a  matter  of  centuries  or  millennia. 
The  Egyptians,  perhaps  because  the  details  are  fore- 
shortened by  the  vast  distance,  seem  to  possess  a  chro- 
nology, but  no  real  history.  There  were  revolutions, 
rather  than  evolution.  The  Greeks  were  young,  too, 
individually  as  well  as  chronologically.  From  Homer 
down  through  the  classic  period  we  hear  "  the  everlast- 
ing wonder-song  of  youth."  Plato  makes  an  Egyptian 
priest  say  to  the  Athenian  law-giver :  ''  O  Solon,  Solon, 
you  Hellenes  are  ever  children ;  no  Hellene  is  ever  old !" 
We  find  the  Greeks  of  the  historic  period  on  the  intel- 
lectual watershed  between  antiquity  and  the  modern 
world.   From  data  now  well  established  we  may  push 


INTRODUCTORY  3 

back  their  life  far  beyond  recorded  chronology,  and,  if 
we  anticipate  even  by  a  little  the  nucleus  of  the  Homeric 
poems,  we  possess  a  practically  unbroken  continuity 
of  their  history  and  language  for  three  thousand  years 
down  to  the  present  day.  Greek  history  is  often  con- 
fined within  perfecdy  arbitrary  dates.  In  reality,  the 
death  of  Alexander  in  323  b.  c,  the  closing  of  the  schools 
of  philosophy  in  529  a.  d.,  and  the  fall  of  Constantino- 
ple in  1453  ^'  ^'  ^^^y  break  its  course  into  convenient 
chapters. 

The  Greek  language  is  itself  one  of  the  greatest  crea- 
tions of  Greek  art.  Discarding  some  superfluities,  re- 
tained or  over-emphasized  by  others  of  our  common 
Indo-European  family,  the  Greeks  developed  an  instru- 
ment for  the  expression  of  thought  unsurpassed,  if  not 
unequalled,  among  any  other  people.  "The  whole  lan- 
guage resembles  the  body  of  an  artistically  trained  ath- 
lete, in  which  every  muscle  is  called  into  full  play,  where 
there  is  no  trace  of  flaccid  tumidity,  and  all  is  power 
and  life."  The  "common  dialect"  already  dominated 
the  eastern  Mediterranean  before  the  Romans  took 
physical  possession.  Its  direct  legatee  is  the  modem 
Greek,  that  had  sprung  up  in  lusty  independence  some 
three  centuries  before  the  Turks  put  an  end  to  senile 
Byzantium  and  its  crabbed  ecclesiastical  speech. 

Of  creative  literature  the  same  unbroken  continuity 
cannot  be  predicated.  The  early  literature,  beginning 
with  Homer,  extends  through  the  first  quarter  of  the 
fifth  century  b.  c.   It  includes  the  great  epic  poetry,  the 


4     GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

elegiac  and  iambic,  the  beginnings  of  philosophy,  and 
seven  of  the  ten  greatest  lyric  poets.  No  fact  in  Greek 
literature  is  more  conspicuous  than  the  shortness  and 
the  richness  of  the  next  period,  which  may  be  conven- 
iently called  the  "Attic,"  although  some  of  the  greatest 
writers  came  from  outside  of  Attica  —  from  Boeotia, 
from  the  islands,  from  beyond  the  ^Egean,  or  from 
Sicily.  Within  this  brief  period  of  only  183  years,  if 
we  close  it  with  the  death  of  Menander  in  292  b.  c,  all 
the  additional  types  of  the  literature  either  culminated 
or  originated. 

The  next  period  of  150  years,  commonly  known  as  the 
Alexandrian  period,  has  within  its  early  limits  the  name 
of  Theocritus,  whose  quality  entides  him  to  rank  with 
the  writers  of  the  Classic  period,  as  does  that  of  his 
two  legatees,  Bion  and  Moschus,  and  also  Herodas, 
whose  writings,  recovered  in  the  fortunate  year  1891, 
have  now  made  him  a  part  of  the  Greek  Classics.  But 
in  the  Alexandrian  period,  and  in  the  Graeco-Roman 
period  from  146  b.  c.  to  529  A.  d.,  the  great  names  are, 
as  a  rule,  not  so  great,  and  they  are  spread  over  a  long 
time.  Few  of  them,  except  Lucian  in  the  second  cen- 
tury of  our  era,  and  Plutarch  immediately  preceding 
him,  successfully  compete  for  a  prominent  place  as 
writers  of  pure  literature. 

With  a  few  exceptions,  the  great  original  work  in 
Greek  literature  had  been  done  before  the  death  of  Me- 
nander. The  Greek  anthology,  however,  must  not  be 
ignored.  It  ranges  over  more  than  one  thousand  years 


INTRODUCTORY  5 

and  leaves  no  century  in  all  that  time  without  at  least 
some  minor  representative  of  great  beauty.  Like  a 
cord  twisted  of  dull  strands  and  golden,  it  binds  to- 
gether the  Attic  age  with  the  whole  of  the  subsequent 
time  down  to  the  year  550  of  our  era,  the  golden  strand 
reappearing  sufficiently  often  to  assure  us  of  its  con- 
tinuity. The  next  nine  centuries  of  Byzantine  Greek, 
ecclesiastical  and  profane,  are  little  known  to  most 
classical  scholars.  The  contributions  of  the  modern 
Greek,  before  and  since  the  days  of  Byron,  are  signifi- 
cant, and  the  friends  of  the  new  kingdom  await  with 
cordial  expectation  the  rise  of  new  writers  to  give  to  the 
lore  of  the  peasant  and  the  struggles  of  the  patriot  a 
worthy  literary  form.  Of  the  lacunae  in  the  literature,  in 
spite  of  the  continuity  of  the  language.  Professor  Hat- 
zidakis  of  Athens  has  well  said:  "The  Greek  language 
is  as  little  to  be  blamed  for  this  as  could  be  the  marble 
quarries  of  Mount  Pentelicus,  because  in  those  times 
no  one  fashioned  from  them  a  Hermes  of  Praxiteles  or 
an  Aphrodite  of  Melos." 

A  glance  at  the  map  will  show  how  accessible  was 
the  mainland  of  Greece,  upon  the  east  and  south,  to 
seafaring  visitors  from  across  the  iEgean,  who  would 
naturally  find  here  their  first  landing-places.  Except 
for  the  great  gash  of  the  Corinthian  Gulf,  the  western 
coast  is  indented  only  with  smaller,  though  good,  har- 
bours, while  the  whole  southern  and  eastern  seaboard 
from  Messenia  in  the  southwest  to  Thrace  is  a  ragged 
fringe  of  promontories,  large  and  small,  welcoming  into 


6     GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

the  interior  the  waters  that  suggested  sea-business  of 
war  and  commerce. 

But  this  interlacing  of  land  and  water,  that  brought 
the  insinuating  "call  of  the  sea,"  was  not  the  only 
factor  that  predetermined  the  character  of  the  Greek 
cantons.  The  Greeks  were  mountaineers  as  well  as 
mariners.  One  is,  indeed,  almost  tempted  to  speak  of 
Greece  as  consisting  of  only  mountains  and  marina. 
There  are  of  course  some  relatively  large  plains,  nota- 
bly the  fertile  granary  of  Thessaly,  but  the  general 
impression  of  the  land  from  any  bird's-eye  view  is  a 
succession  of  lofty  ridges,  peaks,  and  spurs.  Only  by 
many  shiftings  of  the  place  of  outlook  do  these  par- 
tially resolve  themselves  into  ranges  continuous  in  cer- 
tain general  directions,  though  with  many  sharp  angles 
and  curves  and  buttressed  by  uncompromising  cross 
ridges.  These  mountain  barriers  make  clear  the  history 
of  the  Greek  peoples,  both  how  they  combined  tempo- 
rarily to  resist  foreign  invasion  and,  above  all,  why  they 
developed  and  cherished  in  tiny  cantons  their  charac- 
teristic individualism,  which  has  been  by  turns  a  bane 
and  a  blessing. 

Thessaly  and  Mount  Olympus  to  the  north  belong 
geographically  to  the  Kingdom  of  Greece.  On  either 
side  of  Thessaly  irregular  mountain  chains  run  south- 
ward and  preserve  a  general  connection  through 
Central  Greece  and  Attica,  and,  despite  the  submerg- 
ing water,  may  be  identified  as  reappearing  in  the 
islands  far  out  in  the  ^gean.   Olympus  on  the  north- 


INTRODUCTORY  7 

east — hardly  interrupted  by  the  river  Penei us,  which 
has  rent  its  way  through  the  precipitous  canon  known 
as  the  "Vale"  of  Tempe  —  is  continued  along  the  east 
coast  by  Mount  Ossa  and  Mount  Pelion.  Then  across 
the  narrow  entrance  to  the  Pagasaean  and  Malian  gulfs 
the  system  is  continued  by  the  sharp  dorsal  fins  of  the 
island  of  Euboea,  that  stretches  like  a  sea-monster  along 
the  shores  of  Locr is,  Boeotia,  and  Attica,  to  reappear  at  in- 
tervals far  to  the  southeast  in  the  islands  Andros,  Tenos, 
Myconos,  Delos,  Naxos,  Amorgos,  and  Astypalaea.  On 
the  west  of  Thessaly  the  great  Pindus  ridge,  descend- 
ing through  the  centre  of  northern  Greece,  details  on 
the  rugged  system  of  peaks  and  ranges  which  fill  cen- 
tral Greece  southward  to  the  Gulf  of  Corinth  and 
which  in  general  run  from  west  to  east.  One  of  these 
ranges,  called  the  Othrys  Mountains,  bounds  the  Thes- 
salian  countries  on  the  south  and  ends  at  the  Gulf  of 
Pagasae.  Another,  Mount  (Eta,  is  continued  by  the 
high  mountains  that  shut  off  Thermopylae  to  the  north 
and  runs  on  as  the  boundary  between  Locris  and 
Boeotia.  Still  another  range,  running  out  of  the  central 
complex,  has  its  culmination  in  Parnassus,  8070  feet 
high,  and  is  continued,  though  more  interrupted  and 
with  a  more  irregular  course,  by  Mount  Helicon  in 
Boeotia  and  the  frontier  hills  of  Attica,  from  Helicon  to 
Parnes,  and  bends  around  into  the  massive  ridge  of 
Mount  Pentelicus,  from  whose  summit  the  spectator 
can  see  the  prolongation  in  the  islands  of  Ceos,  Cyth- 
nos,  Seriphos,  and  others  beyond. 


8  GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

The  narrow  neck  that  divides  the  Corinthian  from 
the  Saronic  Gulf  and  connects  Attica  and  Boeotia  with 
the  Peloponnesus,  lifts  up  among  its  rugged  hills  in 
Megara  the  picturesque  twin  peaks  of  the  Kerata. 
South  of  the  isthmus  itself,  with  its  narrow  plain  and 
the  deep  cutting  necessary  for  the  canal,  rises  the  splen- 
did acropolis  of  Acrocorinth,  keeping  guard  at  the  en- 
trance to  the  "Island  of  Pelops." 

The  Peloponnesus,  or  Morea,  is  a  rugged  complex  of 
mountains  that  by  turns  shut  out  and  admit  the  sea.  Of 
its  four  irregular  peninsulas,  jutting  out  southward  in 
the  Argolis  and  in  Laconia  and  Messenia,  each  has  its 
mountain  system;  the  more  broken  hills  in  the  Ar- 
golid  plain ;  the  ridge  of  Parnon  to  the  east  of  the  plain 
of  Lacedaemon;  the  imposing  barrier  of  Taygetus 
between  Sparta  and  Messenia.  In  Messenia  itself  are 
fertile  plains.  One  is  in  the  midland,  as  the  name 
Messenia  originally  implied,  among  offshoots  of  the 
Arcadian  Lycaeus;  while  the  great  mountain  fortress  of 
Ithome,  2600  feet  high,  where  crops  could  be  reared 
and  an  army  supported,  towering  above  the  hills  and 
plains  of  central  Messenia,  looks  down  on  another 
larger  plain,  almost  tropical  in  its  products,  that 
stretches  southward  to  the  gulf. 

The  centre  and  west  of  the  Peloponnesus  is  a  mass  of 
peaks  and  mountain  ridges  tangled  up  at  abrupt  angles 
but  bounded  on  the  north  by  a  formidable  chain,  gene- 
rally parallel  with  the  Gulf  of  Corinth  and  dominated 
by  Erymanthus  and  Cyllene  to  the  west  and  east  re- 


INTRODUCTORY  9 

spectively.  Around  and  against  this  chain  great  moun- 
tains are  piled  up  like  petrified  billows.  In  this  part 
of  Greece  plains  few  but  important  are  interspersed,  as 
at  Megalopolis  or  Olympia.  Along  the  northwest  coast 
there  is  the  wider  sea-margin  of  ''Hollow"  Elis,  while 
along  the  Corinthian  Gulf  ^gialus,  the  "coast-land," 
seems  often  little  more  than  a  grudging  marina  sub- 
jacent to  the  foothills  of  Erymanthus  and  Cyllene. 

From  north  to  south,  from  east  to  west  the  Greek 
landscape  lends  itself  to  panoramic  views.  Lucian  in 
his  "  Charon  "  makes  Hermes  seat  himself  on  one  of  the 
twin  peaks  of  Parnassus  and  Charon  upon  the  other. 
With  eyes  anointed  with  Homeric  eye-salve,  the  Ferry- 
man, on  his  furlough  from  the  under- world,  is  able 
to  see  not  only  the  Greater  Greece  outspread  around 
him,  —  from  Asia  Minor  to  Sicily,  from  the  Danube  to 
Crete,  —  but  to  look  off  beyond  to  the  Orient  and  to 
Egypt.  These  wide  outlooks  are  enhanced  by  the 
distinctness  of  the  sky-line,  everywhere  an  impor- 
tant factor.  "  The  hard  limestone  of  which  the  moun- 
tains are  composed  is  apt  to  break  away,  and  thus 
produces  those  sharply-cut  outlines  which  stand  out 
so  clearly  against  the  transparent  sky  of  Greece." 

So  large  a  troupe  of  actors  played  their  parts  in 
Greek  history  that  the  imagination  demands  a  roomy 
stage.  But  the  country  is  small.  Were  it  not  for  the 
mountain  barriers,  the  scale  of  distances  would  seem 
trivial.  It  is,  for  example,  only  some  thirty  miles  in  an 
air  line  from  Thermopylae  to  the  Gulf  of  Corinth.  Even 


10    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

on  the  leisurely  and  winding  Piraeus,  Athens,  and  Pelo- 
ponnesus Railway,  it  is  only  one  day's  ride  from  Athens 
via  the  Isthmus  down  to  Kalamata  on  the  Bay  of  Mes- 
senia.  The  degrees  of  latitude  that  include  the  main- 
land of  Central  and  Southern  Greece  span  in  the  west 
only  the  Lipari  Islands  and  Sicily;  the  thirty-eighth 
parallel  that  passes  south  of  Palermo  and  the  straits  of 
Messina  runs  a  litde  north  of  Athens;  while  the  thir- 
ty-seventh parallel,  running  just  south  of  Syracuse, 
passes  still  farther  south  of  Kalamata  and  Sparta. 

Not  only  is  the  mainland  of  Greece  contained  in 
narrow  geographical  limits,  but  the  ^Egean  itself  is 
almost  an  inland  lake  enclosed  within  neighbouring 
coasts.  In  clear  weather  the  sailor,  without  adventur- 
ing upon  open  sea,  might  pass  from  mainland  to  main- 
land as  he  watched  from  his  advancing  prow  another 
island  lift  above  the  horizon  before  losing  sight  of  the 
harbour  left  astern.  In  Greek  literature  there  is  no  more 
striking  reminder  of  the  contiguity  of  the  Asian  coast 
to  Greece  proper  than  the  well-known  passage  in  the 
"Agamemnon"  of  iEschylus  describing  the  swift  tele- 
graphy of  the  beacon  signals  that  brought  to  Argos  the 
news  of  the  capture  of  Troy.  The  ten  years'  absence 
of  Agamemnon's  host  tends  to  an  instinctive  extension 
of  the  distance,  if  the  imagination  is  not  checked  by  the 
actual  scale  of  miles.  Troy  seems  farther  from  Argos 
than  the  Holy  Land  from  the  homes  of  the  Crusaders. 

Beacon  telegraphy  is  a  time-honored  device.  Many 
bright  beacons  doubtless  blazed  before  Agamemnon, 


INTRODUCTORY  n 

as  well  as  since  his  time.  Commentators  have  been  at 
pains  to  justify  by  modern  experiments  with  beacon 
fires  on  lofty  heights  the  severest  strain  upon  our 
optic  nerves  which  ^schylus  makes  in  the  case  of  the 
light  that  leaped  from  Mount  Athos  to  the  high  ridges 
of  Euboea.  The  distance  is  more  than  loo  miles,  but, 
bearing  in  mind  that  the  Euboean  mountain  is  some 
4000  feet  high  and  Athos  more  than  6000,  we  need  not 
apply  for  any  special  license  for  our  poet's  imagination. 
The  devious  course  of  the  fire  signals  from  Euboea  to 
Argos  is  one  of  the  best  illustrations  of  the  jagged  sur- 
face that  Greece  lifts  skywards.  As  one  stands  on 
Mount  Pentelicus  and  looks  across  to  Euboea,  the  inter- 
vening arm  of  the  sea  is  hemmed  in  for  the  eye  into 
narrow  inland  lakes.  And  ^Eschylus,  sufficiently,  though 
not  officiously,  realistic,  makes  the  firelight  zigzag  ir- 
regularly to  dodge  the  interfering  ridges  till  it  falls  upon 
the  palace  roof  at  Argos,  —  not  at  Mycenae,  as  is  the 
not  infrequent  misrepresentation  of  the  iEschylean 
story. 

Clytemnestra,  to  the  chorus  asking  who  could  have 
brought  the  news  so  quickly,  replies :  — 

Hephaestus,  on  from  Ida  sending  brilliant  gleam. 

And  hither  beacon  beacon  sped  with  courier  flame. 

First  Ida  to  the  Hermaean  crag  of  Lemnos  sent, 

Then  from  the  island  was  received  the  mighty  flame 

By  Athos,  Zeus's  mount,  as  third :  this  over-passed  — 

So  that  it  skimmed  the  sea's  broad  back,  —  the  torch's  might, 

A  joyous  traveller,  the  pine's  gold  gleam,  sun-like, 

To  watching  Mount  Macistus  brought  its  flashing  news. 


12    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Macistus  then,  delaying  not,  nor  foolishly 

Fofedone  with  sleep,  as  messenger  pass'd  on  his  share. 

The  beacon's  gleam  unto  Euripus  flowing  far 

Then  came  and  signal  to  Messapium's  pickets  made. 

They  too  gave  back  a  flame  and  ever  onward  sent 

The  news  by  lighting  up  a  heap  of  heather  gray. 

The  Torch  then,  strong  to  run,  nor  dimm'd  as  yet,  leap'd  on 

Like  radiant  moon  across  Asopus  and  his  plain 

And  came  unto  Cithaeron's  crags,  awaking  there 

A  new  relay  of  courier  flame :  nor  did  the  guard 

Disown  the  far-escorted  light,  but  escort  flame 

In  turn  made  soar  aloft  into  the  ether  high. 

Then  over  Lake  Gorgopis  smote  the  gleam  and  came 

Unto  Mount  .^giplanctus  urging  that  the  flame 

Ordain'd  should  fail  not.   Lighting  with  ungrudging  strength 

They  send  a  mighty  beard  of  fire.    O'er  the  height 

That  overlooks  the  Saronic  Gulf  it  onward  flared, 

Until,  when  it  had  reach'd  the  Arachnaean  steep. 

It  lighted  on  the  outposts  neighbour  to  our  town; 

Then  on  this  roof  of  the  Atreidae  falls  this  light, 

The  long-descended  grandchild  of  the  Idaean  flame ! 

From  the  very  smallness  of  Greece  results  the  over- 
crowding of  associations  that  almost  oppress  the  spec- 
tator standing  at  one  or  another  place  of  vantage. 
But  if  his  historic  horizon  is  as  clearly  defined  as  the 
physical  he  will  come  back  to  the  sea-level  with  a 
clearer  understanding  of  the  interdependence  between 
the  scene  and  the  action  of  the  great  dramas  here  en- 
acted. The  country  is  not  only  a  background  but  a 
cause  for  the  literature.  Neither  can  be  fully  under- 
stood without  the  other. 

It  must  not  be  assumed  from  the  smallness  of  the 
land  that  the  spurs  to  the  imagination  of  the  Greeks 
were  few.    On  the  contrary,  within  their  narrow  bor- 


INTRODUCTORY  13 

ders,  nature  was  prodigal  of  her  inspiration.  In  the  few 
miles  from  Thessaly  to  the  Messenian  Gulf  are  offered 
a  variety  of  climate  and  an  alternation  of  products 
well-nigh  unparalleled  for  such  a  limited  area.  The 
warm  air  of  the  sea  penetrating  into  sheltered  valleys 
favours  an  almost  tropical  vegetation,  while  the  lofty 
mountain  ridges  offer  almost  an  Alpine  climate.  In 
Attica,  in  early  spring,  snow  may  occasionally  be  seen 
sprinkled  on  Hymettus  and  glistening  white  on  Mount 
Pentelicus,  while  oranges  hang  on  the  trees  in  Athens. 
Taygetus  in  the  south  maybe  a  snow-covered  mountain 
even  as  late  as  May  while  in  the  Messenian  plain  be- 
low grows  the  palm  and,  more  rarely,  the  edible  date. 
In  the  Argolis  are  groves  of  lemons  and  oranges,  and 
in  Naxos,  in  the  same  latitude  as  Sparta,  the  tender 
lime  ripens  in  the  gardens.  The  gray-green  olive  is 
familiar  throughout  Central  and  Southern  Greece. 
If  we  extend  the  survey  farther  north,  the  beeches  of 
the  Pindus  range,  west  of  Thessaly,  are  surrounded 
by  the  vegetation  rather  of  northern  Europe;  in  the 
interior  of  Thessaly  the  olive  tree  does  not  flourish; 
the  northern  shores  of  the  ^gean  have  the  climate  of 
Central  Germany,  while  Mount  Athos,  whose  marble 
walls  jut  far  out  into  the  i^gean  and  rise  6400  feet  above 
the  sea,  offers  on  its  slopes  nearly  all  species  of  European 
trees  in  succession. 

The  different  parts  of  Greece  offer  a  varying  devel- 
opment in  literature.  In  this  particular  some  districts, 
like  Acarnania,  yEtolia,  and  Achaea,  though  possessed 


14    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

of  great  natural  beauty,  are  negligible.  Arcadia,  though 
itself  unproductive,  inspired  poetry;  others,  also,  like 
Phocis,  Locris,  and  Messenia,  are  inevitably  drawn 
into  the  associations  of  literature  and  history.  In 
Epirus  we  find  at  Dodona  the  first  known  sanctuary  of 
Zeus,  the  supreme  god  of  the  Greeks.  In  Thessaly  the 
earliest  Greeks,  or  Achaeans,  may  have  first  forged  in 
the  fire  of  their  young  imagination  the  tempered  steel 
of  the  hexameter.  Here  was  the  home  of  Achilles,  and 
here,  perhaps,  we  must  look  for  the  kernel  of  the  Iliad. 
Here  most  fitly,  close  to  Olympus  where  dwelt  the  im- 
mortals, could  the  sons  of  men  be  "near-gods.'* 

From  the  north  and  northwest  successive  waves  of 
population  descended  into  lower  Greece  to  conquer, 
merge  with,  or  become  subject  to  the  previous  comers. 
But  prehistoric  peoples,  whether  alien  or  Greek,  like 
the  Eteo-Cretans,  the  Pelasgi,  the  Minyae,  the  Leleges, 
the  Hellenes,  the  Achaeans,  and  even  great  movements 
like  the  Dorian  and  Ionian  migrations,  are  all  fore- 
shortened on  a  scenic  background,  as  equidistant  to  the 
Greeks  of  the  classic  periods  as  is  the  vault  of  heaven 
to  the  eyes  of  children.  One  star,  indeed,  differed  from 
another.  The  Dorian,  for  example,  was  of  the  first 
magnitude.  But  the  relations  of  apparent  magnitude 
and  real  distance  were  ignored  or  naively  confused  in 
the  fanciful  constellations  of  myth  and  saga,  distant 
yet  ever  present,  bending  around  then;  to  their  explored 
horizon.  Heroic  figures  impalpable  but  real  as  the 
gods   themselves   intervened   continually,    controlling 


INTRODUCTORY  15 

decisions,  shaping  policies,  or  determining  disputed 
boundaries  among  even  the  most  intellectual  of  the 
Greeks.  Royalty,  oligarchy,  democracy,  and  tyranny 
alike  must  reckon  with  personified  tradition. 

When  we  emerge  into  the  light  of  more  authentic 
records  it  is  well,  in  the  confusing  maze  of  inter-cantonal 
contentions,  to  focus  the  mind,  for  the  purpose  of  ap- 
preciating the  literature,  upon  certain  broader  relations 
and  more  clearly  defined  epochs  in  Greek  history,  like 
the  so-called  "Age  of  the  Despots"  within  the  seventh 
and  sixth  centuries,  the  Persian  wars,  and  the  conflicts 
between  Attica  as  a  pivot  and  the  Peloponnese,  Thebes, 
and  Macedon. 

It  might  be  expected  from  the  variety  of  natural 
charm  offered  by  Hellenic  lands,  from  Ilium  to  Sicily, 
from  Mount  Olympus  to  Crete,  that  the  Greeks  would 
show  in  their  literature  a  pervasive  love  of  nature.  This 
was,  in  fact,  the  case.  The  modem  eye  has  not  been  the 
first  to  discover  the  beauty  of  form  and  colour  in  the 
Greek  flowers  and  birds,  mountains,  sky  and  sea. 
Modern  critics,  ignoring  all  historical  perspective  and 
assuming  as  a  procrustean  standard  the  one-sided  and 
sophisticated  attitude  that  has  played  a  leading  role  in 
modern  literature,  announced  as  axiomatic  that  ancient 
Greek  poets  had  no  feeling  for  nature  and  found  no 
pleasure  in  looking  at  the  beauties  of  a  landscape. 
This  superficial  idea  still  keeps  cropping  up,  although 
thoughtful  readers  of  Greek  literature  have  long  since 
pointed  out  the  necessity  both  of  a  chronological  analy- 


i6    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

sis  of  the  literature  and  of  a  more  inclusive  statement  of 
the  various  forms  in  which  a  sentiment  for  the  natural 
world  is  evinced.*  It  is  a  far  cry  from  Homer  to  Theo- 
critus, and,  as  might  well  be  expected  in  a  range  of  six 
centuries  and  more,  new  elements  appear  from  time  to 
time,  due  both  to  changing  conditions  of  life  and  civil- 
ization and  also  to  the  personal  equation. 

A  naive  feeling  for  nature  is  uppermost  in  the  de- 
scriptive comparisons  and  similes  of  Homer  and,  gen- 
erally speaking,  in  the  myth-making  of  the  Greeks. 
The  concrete  embodiment  of  natural  phenomena  and 
objects  in  some  Nature-divinity  often  obviated  the 
necessity  for  elaborate  description  and  summarized 
their  conceptions  as  if  by  an  algebraic  formula.  The 
mystical  element  was  not  lacking,  but  by  this  myth- 
making  process  it  became  objective  and  real.  The 
sympathetic  feeling  for  nature  becomes  more  and  more 
apparent  in  lyric  poetry  and  the  drama  until  in  Euripi- 
des there  emerges,  almost  suddenly,  the  "modern" 
romanticism.  In  the  Hellenistic  and  imperial  times, 
finally,  the  sentimental  element  is  natural  to  men  who 
turn  to  the  country  for  relief  from  the  stress  of  life  in  a 
city.  One  generalization  for  the  classic  periods  may 
be  safely  made.  Although  the  Greeks  from  Homer  to 
Euripides  thought  of  the  world  as  the  environment  of 
man,  yet  they  stopped  short  of  a  sentimental  self-analy- 
sis. Charles  Eliot  Norton,  more  than  thirty  years  ago, 

*  Cf.  Fairclough,  The  Attitude  of  the  Greek  Tragedians  toward 
Nature, 


INTRODUCTORY  17 

pointed  out  that  the  expression  of  a  sentiment  like 
Wordsworth's  — 

"To  me  the  meanest  flower  that  blows  can  give 
Thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears"  — 

is  foreign  to  the  clear-eyed  Hellene,  reared  amongst 
the  distinct  outlines  of  his  mountains  and  from  the 
cradle  to  the  grave  at  home  upon  the  blue  and  wind- 
swept iEgean.  Certainly  this  is  true  until  the  spec- 
ulative questionings  of  the  Ionic  philosophers  had 
time  to  react  upon  literature.  As  the  Greeks  ac- 
cepted their  pedigrees  from  the  gods  and  heroes,  so 
they  accepted  their  environment  of  beauty.  They 
were  not  unlike  the  child,  content  to  betray  by  a 
stray  word  or  caress  his  imanalyzed  admiration  for  his 
mother's  face. 

Emphasis  has  often  been  laid,  and  rightly,  upon  the 
keen  sensitiveness  of  the  Greeks  to  beauty  of  form  in 
sculpture,  architecture,  and  literature.  It  is  urged  that 
they  made  this  sense  of  form  and  proportion  so  para- 
mount that  they  were  blind  to  the  beauty  of  colouring 
and  indifferent  to  the  prodigal  variety  of  Nature's 
compositions.  It  may  be  readily  admitted  that  this  is  a 
vital  distinction  between  the  ancient  and  modern  atti- 
tudes. Both  the  craving  for  perfection  of  form  and  the 
preference  given  to  man  before  nature  come  out  in  the 
preeminent  development  of  sculpture  by  the  Greeks. 
Their  admiration  of  the  beauty  of  the  human  form,  un- 
like the  sensitive  shrinking  of  moderns,  was  extended 
even  to  the  lifeless  body,  ^schylus  speaks  of  the  war- 


i8    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

riors  who  have  found  graves  before  Troy  as  still  "  fair 
of  form.'' 

But  a  prevailing  tendency  does  not  necessarily  ex- 
clude other  elements.  However  meagre  the  vocabulary 
of  the  Greeks  in  sharp  distinction  of  shades  of  colour, 
their  love  for  a  bright  colour-scheme  is  shown  not  only 
by  the  brilliancy  of  their  clothing  and  their  use  of  col- 
ouring in  statuary  and  architecture,  —  for  even  in 
these  mere  form  was  not  enough,  —  but  in  unnum- 
bered expressions  Hke  Alcman's  "sea-purple  bird  of 
the  springtime." 

A  few  of  the  more  obvious  passages,  illustrating  the 
Greek  attitude  toward  nature,  are  here  given  in  gen- 
eral historic  sequence.  Others  will  be  found  in  the 
subsequent  chapters  in  connection  with  particular  land- 
scapes. Very  often  such  references  are  casual  and  subor- 
dinate to  some  controlling  idea,  but  they  none  the  less 
reflect  habitual  observation.  Even  when  we  speak  of 
Homeric  "  tags,"  like  the  "saffron-robed"  or  "rosy-fin- 
gered," or  of  Sappho's  "golden-sandalled"  Dawn,  as 
"standing  epithets,"  we  are  implying  that  these  epi- 
thets made  a  general  appeal.  The  naive  insertions  in 
Homer  of  comparisons  drawn  from  birds  and  beasts, 
from  night  and  storm  and  other  familiar  elements  of 
nature,  would  seem  like  an  intrusive  delay  of  the  story 
did  they  not  carry  with  them  the  conviction  that  both 
poet  and  hearers  alike  were  well  content  to  linger  by 
the  way  and  observe  the  objects  of  daily  life  indoors 
and  out.  Thus  in  the  Odyssey :  — 


INTRODUCTORY  19 

The  lion  mountain-bred,  with  eyes  agleam,  fares  on- 
ward in  the  rain  and  wind  to  fall  upon  the  oxen  or  the 
sheep  or  wilding  deer. 

Or,  again :  — 

Hermes  sped  along  the  waves  like  sea-mew  hunting 
fish  in  awesome  hollows  of  the  sea  unharvested  and  wet- 
ting his  thick  plumage  in  the  brine. 

One  of  the  longer  and  best  known  comparisons  is  the 
description  in  the  Iliad  of  the  Trojan  encampment  by 
night :  — 

Now  they  with  hearts  exultant  through  the  livelong 
night  sat  by  the  space  that  bridged  the  moat  of  war,  their 
watch-fires  multitudinous  alight.  And  just  as  in  the  sky 
the  stars  around  the  radiant  moon  shine  clear;  when  wind- 
less is  the  air;  when  all  the  peaks  stand  out,  the  lofty  fore- 
lands and  the  glades;  when  breaketh  open  from  the  sky 
the  ether  infinite  and  all  the  stars  are  seen  and  make  the 
shepherds  glad  at  heart — so  manifold  appeared  the  watch- 
fires  kindled  by  the  Trojan  men  in  front  of  Ilios  betwixt 
the  streams  of  Xanthus  and  the  ships.  So  then  a  thousand 
fires  burned  upon  the  plain  and  fifty  warriors  by  the  side 
of  each  were  seated  in  the  blazing  fire's  gleam  the  while 
the  horses  by  the  chariots  stood  and  champed  white  bar- 
ley and  the  spelt  and  waited  for  the  throned  Dawn. 

Sappho's  fragments  are  redolent  of  flowers;  her 
woven  verse,  a  "rich-red  chlamys"  in  the  sunshine, 
has  a  silver  sheen  in  the  moonlight.  We  hear  the  full- 
throated  passion  of  "the  herald  of  the  spring,  the 
nightingale " ;  the  breeze  moves  the  apple  boughs,  the 
wind  shakes  the  oak  trees.     Her  allusions  to  "the 


20    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

hyacinths,  darkening  the  ground,  when  trampled  under 
foot  of  shepherds";  the  "  fine,  soft  bloom  of  grass, 
trodden  by  the  tender  feet  of  Cretan  women  as  they 
dance";  or  the  "golden  pulse  growing  on  the  shore," 
— all  these  seem  inevitable  to  one  who  has  seen  the 
acres  of  bright  flowers  that  carpet  the  islands  or  the 
nearby  littoral  of  the  Asian  coast.  Her  comparison  of 
a  bridegroom  to  "a  supple  sapling"  recalls  how  Nausi- 
caa,  vigorous,  tall,  and  straight  as  the  modern  ath- 
letic maiden,  is  likened  by  Odysseus  to  the  "young 
shaft  of  a  palm  tree"  that  he  had  once  seen  "spring- 
ing up  in  Delos  by  Apollo's  altar."  In  her  Lesbian 
orchards  the  sweet  quince-apple  is  still  left  hanging 
"solitary  on  the  topmost  bough,  upon  its  very  end"; 
and  there  is  heard  "cool  murmuring  through  apple 
boughs  while  slumber  floateth  down  from  quivering 
leaves."  Nor  need  we  attribute  Sappho's  love  of  natu- 
ral beauty  wholly  to  her  passionate  woman's  nature. 
All  the  gentler  emotions  springing  from  an  habitual 
observation  of  nature  recur  in  poets  of  the  sterner  sex. 
"The  Graces,"  she  says,  "turn  their  faces  from  those 
who  wear  no  garlands."  And  at  banquets  wreaths 
were  an  essential  also  for  masculine  full-dress.  Pindar, 
in  describing  Elysian  happiness,  leads  up  to  the  climax 
of  the  companionship  with  the  great  and  noble  dead 
by  telling  how  "round  the  islands  of  the  Blest  the 
ocean  breezes  blow  and  flowers  of  gold  are  blooming : 
some  from  the  land  on  trees  of  splendour  and  some 
the  water  feedeth;  with  wreaths  whereof  they  twine 


INTRODUCTORY  21 

their  heads  and  hands."  *  Against  the  green  back- 
ground passes  Evadne  with  her  silver  pitcher  and  her 
girdle  of  rich  crimson  woof,  and  her  child  is  seen  "hid- 
den in  the  rushes  of  the  thicket  unexplored,  his  tender 
flesh  all  steeped  in  golden  and  deep  purple  light  from 
pansy  flowers." 

To  follow  through  the  poetry  of  the  Greeks  the  un- 
failing delight  in  the  radiance  of  the  moon  would  be 
to  follow  her  diurnal  course  as  she  passes  over  Greek 
lands  from  east  to  west.  The  full  moon  looked  down 
on  all  the  01)mipian  festivals  and  Pindar's  pages  are 
illuminated  with  her  glittering  argentry.  The  Lesbian 
nights  inspire  Sappho  as  did  all  things  beautiful. 

The  clustering  stars  about  the  radiant  moon  avert 
their  faces  bright  and  hide,  what  time  her  orb  is  rounded 
to  the  full  and  touches  earth  with  silver. 

Wordsworth  could  take  this  thought  from  Sappho: 
"The  moon  doth  with  delight  look  round  her  when  the 
heavens  are  bare,"  but  the  Lesbian  certainly  did  not 
finish  the  fragment  by  lamenting  that "  there  has  passed 
away  a  glory  from  the  earth." 

The  night  and  the  day  alike  claimed  the  attention  of 
the  poets  and  the  interchange  of  dusk  and  dawn  ap- 
pealed to  the  sculptor  also.  In  the  east  gable  of  the 
Parthenon  the  horses  of  the  Sun  and  of  the  Moon  were 
at  either  end.  Nature's  sleep  is  a  favourite  topic.  Ale- 
man's  description  is  unusual  only  for  its  detail :  — 

*  Translation  (modified)  by  E.  Myers;  see  p.  ix. 


22    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Sleep  the  peaks  and  mountain  clefts; 
Forelands  and  the  torrents'  rifts; 
All  the  creeping  things  are  sleeping, 
Cherished  in  the  black  earth's  keeping; 
Mountain -ranging  beast  and  bee; 
Fish  in  depths  of  the  purple  sea; 
Wide-winged  birds  their  pinions  droop  — 
Sleep  now  all  the  feathered  troop. 

Goethe,  in  his  well-known  paraphrase,  — 

"  Ueber  alien  Gipfeln 
1st  Ruh,"  — 

cannot  refrain  from  adding  the  subjective  conclusion 
of  the  whole  matter :  — 

"Die  Vogelein  schweigen  im  Walde. 
Warte  nur,  balde 
Ruhest  du  auch.'* 

The  great  dramatists  display  an  observation  of  the 
beauty  of  the  external  world  not  always  sufficiently 
emphasized.  In  iEschylus  an  intense  feeling  is  evi- 
dent ;  none  the  less  because  it  is  subordinated  to  his 
theme  or  used  to  point,  by  way  of  contrast,  some 
awe-inspiring  or  pathetic  situation  or  some  scene  of 
blood.  Clytemnestra  describes  how  she  murdered  her 
husband.   His  spattering  blood,  she  says, — 

Keeps  striking  me  with  dusky  drops  of  murd'rous  dew, 
Aye,  me  rejoicing  none  the  less  than  God's  sweet  rain 
Makes  glad  the  corn-land  at  the  birth-pangs  of  the  buds. 

Comparisons,  similes,  and  epithets  drawn  from  the  sea 
reappear  continually  in  the  warp  and  woof  of  Greek, 
and  especially  of  Athenian,  literature.  ^Eschylus,  like 
the  rest,  knew  the  sea  in  all  its  moods,  terrible  in  storm, 


INTRODUCTORY  23 

deceitful  in  calm,  beautiful  at  all  times  and  the  path- 
way for  commerce  and  for  war.  The  returning  herald 
in  the  "Agamemnon"  rehearses  the  soldiers'  hard 
bivouac  in  summer  and  in  winter ;  — 

And  should  one  tell  of  winter,  dealing  death  to  birds, 
What  storms  unbearable  swept  down  from  Ida's  snow. 
Or  summer's  heat  when,  ruffled  by  no  rippling  breeze, 
Ocean  slept  waveless,  on  his  midday  couch  laid  prone. 

With  the  first  lines  of  "Prometheus  Bound"  we  are 
carried  far  from  the  haunts  of  men :  — 

Unto  this  far  horizon  of  earth's  plain  we've  come, 
This  Scythian  tract,  this  desert  by  man's  foot  untrod. 

Hephaestus  reluctant,  compelled  by  Zeus's  order,  rivets 
his  kin-god,  the  Fire-bringer,  to  the  desolate  North 
Sea  crag  and  withdraws  leaving  Prometheus  in  fetters 
to  "wrestle  down  the  myriad  years  of  time."  The 
night  shuts  off  the  warmth  and  light,  drawing  over 
him  her  "star-embroidered  robe,"  and  the  fierce  sun- 
god  returns  with  blazing  rays  to  "deflower  his  fair 
skin"  bared  of  the  white  counterpane  of  "frost  of  early 
dawn."  Not  until  the  emissaries  of  Zeus  have  departed 
does  Prometheus  deign  to  speak.  Then  he  "communes 
with  Nature."  He  has  no  hope  of  help  from  God,  none 
from  the  "helpless  creatures  of  a  day"  whom  he  has 
helped.  Alone  with  the  forces  of  nature  he  utters  that 
outcry  unsurpassed  in  sublimity  and  in  pathos :  — 

O  upper  air  divine  and  winds  on  swift  wings  borne; 
Ye  river-springs;  innumerous  laughter  of  the  waves 
Of  Ocean;  thou,  Earth,  the  mother  of  us  all; 


24    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

And  thou,  all-seeing  orb  of  the  Sun —  to  you  I  cry : 
Behold  me  what  I  'm  sufifering,  a  god  from  gods! 

Sophocles,  too,  lets  Philoctetes,  in  his  misery  and 
loneliness  on  the  rocky  island  of  Lemnos,  call  out  to  the 
wild  beasts  and  the  landscape :  — 

Harbours  and  headlands;  and  ye  mountain-ranging  beasts, 
Companions  mine;  ye  gnawed  and  hanging  cliffs!    Of  this 
To  you  I  cry  aloud,  for  I  have  none  save  you  — 
You  ever  present  here  —  to  whom  to  make  my  cry. 

In  his  famous  ode  on  the  Attic  Colonus  he  describes 
the  natural  beauty  of  his  home  with  particularizing 
exactness.  He  has  also  a  wealth  of  glittering  epithet 
used  for  local  colouring,  for  symbolism  and  personifi- 
cation. The  contrast  of  day  and  night  offers  to  him 
a  welcome  mise-en-scene.  The  sun's  rays  are  Apollo's 
golden  shafts  and  the  moon's  light  seems  to  filter 
through  the  trees  as  Artemis  roams  the  uplands :  — 

O  God  of  the  light,  from  the  woven  gold 

Of  the  strings  of  thy  bow,  I  am  fain  to  behold 

Thy  arrows  invincible,  showered  around, 

As  champions  smiting  our  foes  to  the  ground. 

And  Artemis,  too,  with  her  torches  flaring. 

Gleams  onward  through  Lycian  uplands  faring. 

Bacchus,  also,  the  "god  of  the  golden  snood,"  "lifts 
his  pine-knot's  sparkle"  and,  roaming  with  his  Mae- 
nads, seems  to  visualize  for  men  the  soul  of  Nature.- 
Aristophanes  with  his  common-sense  objectivity  was 
averse  to  the  sentimental  and  romantic  in  Euripides, 
which  seemed  to  him  effeminate.  His  love  for  nature 
was  clear-eyed  and  Hellenic.    His  lyrics  shine  like  a 


INTRODUCTORY  25 

bird's  white  wing  in  the  sunlight.  The  self-invocation 
of  the  Clouds  is  alive  with  the  radiance  of  the  Attic 
atmosphere.  A  translation  can  only  serve  to  illustrate 
the  elements  used  in  the  description :  — 

CHORUS  OF  CLOUDS 

Come  ever  floating,  O  Clouds,  anew, 
Let  us  rise  with  the  radiant  dew 

Of  our  nature  undefiled 
From  father  Ocean's  billows  wild. 

The  tree-fringed  peak 
Of  hill  upon  lofty  hill  let  us  seek 
That  we  may  look  on  the  cliffs  far-seen, 
And  the  sacred  land's  water  that  lends  its  green 
To  the  fruits,  and  the  whispering  rush  of  the  rivers  divine 
And  the  clamorous  roar  of  the  dashing  brine. 

For  Ether's  eye  is  flashing  his  light 

Untired  by  glare  as  of  marble  bright. 

The  "meteor  eyes"  of  the  sun  gaze  "sanguine"  and 
unblinking  upon  the  cloud-palisades,  glaring  bright  as 
the  marble  of  Mount  Pentelicus.  Readers  of  the  Greek 
will  recognize  here  and  there  how  an  Aristophanic 
epithet  or  thought  has  been  precipitated  and  recom- 
bined  by  Shelley  into  new  and  radiant  shapes  that 
drift  through  his  own  cloud-land,  —  "I  change  but  I 
cannot  die!" 

Aristophanes's  observation  of  nature  is  varied  and 
exact.  He  had  nothing  but  ridicule  for  the  pale  student 
within  doors,  and  only  a  man  who  kept  up  an  intimacy 
with  "the  open  road"  could  have  made  the  natural- 
istic painting  in  the  "Peace"  of  the  serenity  of  country 
life:  — 


26    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

We  miss  the  life  of  days  gone  by,  the  pressed  fruit- 
cakes, the  figs,  the  myrtles  and  the  sweet  new  wine,  the 
olive  trees,  the  violet  bed  beside  the  well. 

Euripides  in  his  attitude  toward  nature  has  all  the 
qualities  of  the  other  tragedians  except  sublimity,  to 
which  he  more  rarely  attains.  Many  qualities  are  much 
more  conspicuous.  His  range  of  colour  is  wider.  His 
allusions  to  rivers  and  to  the  plant  and  animal  world  are 
more  detailed.  Picturesque  scenes  and  setting  delight 
him.  Beyond  all  this  the  reflection  in  nature  of  human 
emotion,  occasional  in  his  predecessors,  plays  in  his 
verse  almost  a  leading  part.  Modern  romanticism,  in 
short,  is  no  longer  exceptional. 

Hippolytus,  the  acolyte  of  Artemis,  and  his  attendants 
address  the  virgin  goddess  who  ranges  the  woods  and 
mountains  and  who,  as  ^ischylus  says,  is  "kindly  unto 
all  the  young  things  suckled  at  the  breast  of  wild-wood 
roaming  beasts."  The  "modern"  element  in  the  origi- 
nal loses  nothing  in  this  paraphrase  by  Mallock :  — 

"Hail,  O  most  pure,  most  perfect,  loveliest  one! 

Lo,  in  my  hand  I  bear, 
Woven  for  the  cirding  of  thy  long  gold  hair, 
Culled  leaves  and  flowers,  from  places  which  the  sun 

The  Spring  long  shines  upon, 
Where  never  shepherd  hath  driven  flock  to  graze, 

Nor  any  grass  is  mown; 
But  there  sound  throughout  the  sunny,  sweet  warm  days, 

'Mid  the  green  holy  place 

The  wild  bee's  wings  alone." 

In  one  of    the    despairing    chorals  of   the   "Trojan 
Women  "  the  personification  of  nature  blends  with  the 


INTRODUCTORY  27 

spirit  of  mythology.  The  name  of  Tithonus,  easily 
supplied  by  a  Greek  hearer,  is  inserted  for  English 
readers  in  Gilbert  Murray's  beautiful  paraphrase :  — 

"For  Zeus  —  O  leave  it  unspoken : 
But  alas  for  the  love  of  the  Morn; 
Morn  of  the  milk-white  wing 
The  gentle,  the  earth-loving, 
That  shineth  on  battlements  broken 

In  Troy,  and  a  people  forlorn! 
And,  lo,  in  her  bowers  Tithonus, 

Our  brother,  yet  sleeps  as  of  old: 
O,  she  too  hath  loved  us  and  known  us, 

And  the  Steeds  of  her  star,  flashing  gold, 
Stooped  hither  and  bore  him  above  us; 
Then  blessed  we  the  Gods  in  our  joy. 
But  all  that  made  them  to  love  us 
Hath  perished  from  Troy." 

When  Dionysus  addresses  his  Bacchantes,  Euripides, 
in  lines  reminiscent  of  Alcman,  imposes  upon  outward 
nature  the  solemn  expectancy  of  the  inward  mind :  — 

Hushed  was  the  ether;  in  hushed -silence  whispered  not 
Leaves  in  the  coppice  nor  the  blades  of  meadow  grass ; 
No  cry  at  all  of  any  wild  things  had  you  heard. 

The  formal  banns  of  the  open  wedlock  of  man  and 
nature  were  declared  in  Euripides.  Thereafter  the 
treatment  became  more  and  more  a  matter  of  personal 
equation.  In  Plato's  dialogues,  for  example,  the  ethical 
element  inevitably  appears.  In  the  famous  scene  beside 
the  Ilissus,  Socrates  and  young  Phaedrus  talk  through 
the  heated  hours  beneath  the  shade  of  the  wide-spread- 
ing plane  tree,  where  the  agnus  castus  is  in  full  bloom, 
where  water  cool  to  the  unsandalled  feet  flows  by,  and 


28    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

in  the  branches  the  cicadae,  "prophets  of  the  Muses," 
contribute  of  their  wisdom. 

The  Anthology,  stretched  through  the  centuries  of 
Greek  literature,  links  the  old  and  the  newer,  the  an- 
tique reserve  and  the  fainness  of  modern  romanticism. 
One  of  the  epigrams  attributed  to  Plato  will  serve  to 
indicate  the  emergence  of  the  latter :  — 

On  the  stars  thou  art  gazing,  my  Star; 
Would  that  the  sky  I  might  be, 
For  then  from  afar 
With  my  manifold  eyes  I  would  gaze  upon  thee. 

Another  seems  like  an  artist's  preliminary  sketch  for 
the  picture  by  the  Ilissus,  the  deeper  motive  not  yet 
painted  in :  — 

Sit  thee  down  by  this  pine  tree  whose  twigs  without  number 
Whisper  aloft  in  the  west  wind  aquiver. 
Lo!  here  by  my  stream  as  it  chattereth  ever 
The  Panpipe  enchanteth  thy  eyelids  to  slumber.' 

From  this  we  pass  without  break  to  the  piping  shep- 
herds and  the  country  charms  with  which  Theocritus 
filled  his  Idyls  for  city- jaded  men :  — 

.  .  .  "There  we  lay 
Half  buried  in  a  couch  of  fragrant  reed 
And  fresh-cut  vine  leaves,  who  so  glad  as  we  ? 
A  wealth  of  elm  and  poplar  shook  o'erhead; 
Hard  by,  a  sacred  spring  flowed  gurgling  on 
From  the  Nymphs'  grot,  and  in  the  sombre  boughs 
The  sweet  cicada  chirped  laboriously. 
Hid  in  the  thick  thorn-bushes  far  away 
The  treefrog's  note  was  heard;  the  crested  lark 
Sang  with  the  goldfinch;  turtles  made  their  moan, 
And  o'er  the  fountain  hung  the  gilded  bee."  * 

*  Translated  by  C.  S.  Calverly. 


INTRODUCTORY  29 

Notwithstanding  the  variety  in  landscape  and  the 
lack  of  unified  nationality  in  the  long  centuries  of  Greek 
history,  there  is  a  unity  in  the  impression  of  ancient 
life  left  upon  the  mind  by  a  visit  to  Greece.  This  is 
in  part  due  to  the  comparative  meagreness  of  remains 
from  periods  subsequent  to  classic  times.  The  long 
obliteration  of  mediaeval  and  modem  constructive  civ- 
ilization leaves  more  clear  the  outlines  of  antiquity. 

This  is  true  even  though  the  sum  total  of  the  re- 
mains of  Byzantine  and  mediaeval  life,  on  islands  and 
on  mainland,  is  large  and  claims  the  attention  from  time 
to  time.  In  Athens  the  traveller  will  come  upon  the 
small  Metropolis  church  with  its  ancient  Greek  calen- 
dar of  festivals,  let  in  as  a  frieze  above  the  entrance 
and  metamorphosed  into  Byzantine  sanctity  by  the  in- 
scribing of  Christian  crosses.  As  he  journeys  to  and  fro 
in  Greece  he  may  see  the  venerable  "  hundred-gated " 
church  on  the  island  of  Paros,  recalling  in  certain  de- 
tails the  proscenium  of  an  ancient  theatre ;  Monemvasia 
with  its  vast  ruins,  the  home  of  Byzantine  ecclesiasticism 
and  a  splendour  of  Court  life  that  vied  with  the  pomp 
and  magnificence  of  western  Europe;  or  the  moulder- 
ing walls  of  Mistra,  an  epitome  of  Graeco-Byzantine 
art  from  the  thirteenth  to  the  fifteenth  century;  the 
frowning  hill  and  castle  of  Karytaena  that  guards  the 
approach  to  the  mountain  fastnesses  of  Arcadia;  or 
the  ancient  acropolis  of  Lindus  on  the  island  of  Rhodes 
with  the  impregnable  fortress  of  the  Knights  of  St. 
John. 


30    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Nor  will  the  visitor  ignore  the  reminders  of  the  War 
of  Independence  and  the  renascence  of  life  in  modem 
Greece.  Mesolonghi,  Nauplia,  and  Arachova  have 
contributed  fresh  chapters  to  human  history.  Aligned 
with  ancient  names  are  those  of  modern  heroes  in  the 
nomenclature  of  the  streets  and  of  public  squares,  like 
the  Karaiskakis  Place  that  welcomes  the  traveller  as  he 
disembarks  at  Piraeus. 

But  all  of  these,  whether  mediaeval  or  modern,  fail 
to  blur  the  understanding  of  antiquity.  They  do  not 
obtrude  themselves.  Often  they  even  illustrate  ancient 
life.  The  same  wisdom  that  transferred  allegiance 
from  the  Saturnalia  to  the  Christmas  festival  has  here 
also  been  careful  to  use  for  Byzantine  churches  the  site 
of  ancient  shrines  or  temples :  St.  Elias  is  a  familiar 
name  on  high  mountains  where  once  stood  altars  of  the 
Olympians;  the  cult  of  Dionysus  has  been  skilfully 
transformed,  in  vine-rearing  Naxos,  into  that  of  St 
Dionysius;  SS.  Cosmo  and  Damiano,  patrons  of  medi- 
cine, and  known  as  the  "feeless"  saints,  have  estab- 
lished their  free  dispensary  in  place  of  an  Asklepieion ; 
the  twelve  Apostles  have  replaced  the  '* Twelve  Gods"; 
and  churches  dedicated  to  St.  Demetrius  have  been 
substituted  for  shrines  of  Demeter. 

The  thoughtful  student  of  the  literature  of  the 
Greeks,  no  matter  how  enthusiastic  he  may  be,  will  not 
fail  to  draw  warnings  as  well  as  inspiration  from  their 
history.  But  no  defects  of  the  Greeks  nor  achievements 
of  posterity  can  dispossess  Hellas  of  her  peculiar  lustre. 


INTRODUCTORY  31 

"No  other  nation,"  as  Mr.  Ernest  Myers  has  said  with 
particular  reference  to  the  age  of  Pindar,  ''has  ever 
before  or  since  known  what  it  was  to  stand  alone  im- 
measurably advanced  at  the  head  of  the  civilization 
of  the  world." 


CHAPTER  n 

PIRiEUS,    THE    HARBOUR   TOWN 

Returning  from  Asia  Minor  and  voyaging  from  ^Egina  toward 
Megara  I  began  to  look  on  the  places  round  about  me.  Behind  me 
was  ^gina;  before  me  Megara;  on  the  right  Piraeus;  on  the  left 
Corinth  —  cities  once  flourishing,  now  prostrate  and  in  ruins. 

Servius  Sulpicius  to  Cicero. 

THE  sail  in  bright  sunshine  up  the  Gulf  of 
iEgina,  the  ancient  Saronic  Gulf,  will  have 
fulfilled  the  traveller's  anticipations  of  the 
beauty  of  Greece  and  will  have  quickened  the  historic 
imagination.  History  and  antiquity,  however,  will  give 
place  to  the  insistent  claims  of  modern  Greek  life^^  as 
the  steamer  enters  the  busy  port  and  passes  through  the 
narrow  opening  between  the  welcoming  arms  of  the 
ancient  moles  which  still  protect  the  harbour  and  serve 
at  night  to  hold  up  the  green  and  red  signal  lights  for 
mariners. 

In  this  harbour  meet  the  Orient  and  the  Occident. 
One  may  see  here  craft  of  all  kinds  from  all  parts  of  the 
Mediterranean  and  from  beyond  the  Straits;  modern 
steamers,  big  and  little ;  gunboats,  native  or  foreign ; 
sailing  vessels  from  the  Greek  islands  or  Turkish  pos- 
sessions, laden  with  bright  cargoes  of  yellow  lemons 
and  Cretan  oranges,  great  grapes  purple  and  white,  or 


^Kl^ii 


;!:^rf:iy»i^;yj?;^^ 


y--^  / 


PIRi^US,  THE  HARBOUR  TOWN        33 

*' tunnies  steeped  in  brine";  here  a  steamer  packed 
with  pilgrims  for  a  religious  festival  on  Tenos;  here, 
perhaps,  another  vessel  crowded  with  American  tourists 
to  Jerusalem. 

Upon  landing,  most  visitors  go  immediately  to  Athens, 
but  no  one  should  fail  to  return  once  and  again  to 
Piraeus  in  order  to  see  the  extant  remains  of  the  ship- 
houses  ;  of  the  gateways  and  walls  to  the  northwest  of 
the  Great  Harbour;  of  the  walls  that  skirt  the  whole 
peninsula ;  of  the  theatres  and  other  scanty  traces  of  the 
old  life  within  the  city.  Even  to  a  traveller  innocent  of 
the  facts  of  Greek  history,  the  drive  at  sunset  along  the 
rim  of  the  peninsula  and  the  indenting  harbours  will 
be  one  of  the  best  remembered  experiences  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Athens,  by  reason  of  the  sheer  physical 
beauty  of  land  and  sea,  islands  and  distant  mountains. 

The  terminus  of  the  electric  railroad  from  Athens 
to  Piraeus  is  in  the  northwest  corner  of  the  modern 
town  between  the  lines  now  assumed  for  the  ''The- 
mistocles  Wall"  and  the  ''Wall  of  Conon,"  dating, 
respectively,  from  the  two  most  significant  epochs  in 
the  history  of  Piraeus.  Although  the  tyrant  Hippias 
had  begun  to  fortify  the  Munychia  hill  in  the  sixth 
century  b.  c,  his  undertaking  was  interrupted,  and  it 
was  left  for  Themistocles,  in  the  early  part  of  the  fifth 
century,  to  begin,  and  finally  to  carry  well  on  the  way 
to  completion,  the  transformation  into  a  sea-fortress  of 
this  natural  vantage-ground.  Later,  he  was  for  remov- 
ing Athens  itself  to  Piraeus.  Failing  in  this,  he  shifted 


34    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

the  habitat  for  the  new  fleet  from  the  open  roadstead 
of  Phalerum,  which  was  nearer  Athens,  to  the  land- 
locked harbours  of  Piraeus.  But  the  return  of  the 
Persians,  ten  years  after  Marathon,  surprised  the 
Athenians  with  their  preparations  incomplete,  and 
Athens  was  transferred,  not  indeed  to  Piraeus,  but  to 
the  "wooden  walls"  of  the  triremes  themselves. 

When,  under  Pericles,  Athens  reached  the  acme  of 
her  intellectual,  artistic,  and  material  power,  around 
the  harbours  at  Piraeus  had  been  built  a  well-planned 
city,  with  stately  avenues  and  dwellings  for  wealthy 
men  and  wealthier  gods.  The  port  had  been  completely 
fortified  either  by  the  restoration  and  carrying  out  of 
the  interrupted  building  or  by  the  extension  of  the  plans 
of  Themistocles.  A  massive  wall  inclosed  the  three 
harbours  within  its  circuit,  and  strong  moles,  lasting 
on  into  modern  times,  guarded  their  entrances.  Ship- 
houses  had  also  been  built,  and  doubtless  an  arsenal, 
though  a  less  pretentious  one  than  the  great  structure 
afterwards  erected.  In  short,  all  the  paraphernalia 
existed  for  offensive  and  defensive  naval  operations. 
The  "  Long  Walls,"  actually  built  soon  after  the  ban- 
ishment of  Themistocles  in  472  b.  c,  had  united  Athens 
and  its  port  into  a  dual  city.  No  greater  proof  of  the 
vital  union  of  the  two  cities  could  be  cited  than  the  rage 
and  grief  felt  by  the  citizens  when,  at  the  end  of  the 
Peloponnesian  War,  in  404  b.  c,  the  Spartans  razed 
the  Long  Walls.  It  was  amputating  the  very  feet  of  the 
imperial  Queen  of  the  ^Egean. 


PULSUS,  THE  HARBOUR  TOWN  '  35 

Some  ten  years  later,  the  Long  Walls  were  rebuilt  and 
the  restoration  of  the  Piraeus  fortifications  was  taken  in 
hand.  Of  the  remains  now  visible,  the  major  part 
belongs  to  this  rebuilding  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourth 
century.  A  little  less  than  a  century  had  elapsed  since 
Marathon,  and  we  now  find  Athens  allied  with  her  old 
enemy,  Persia,  against  another  Greek  state.  Conon  the 
Athenian,  victorious  over  the  Spartans  in  the  naval 
battle  of  Cnidus,  sent  back  Persian  gold  to  fortify  the 
Piraeus  anew,  and  the  circuit  wall,  of  which  such  ex- 
tensive remains  are  extant,  was  called  by  his  name. 

On  issuing  from  the  electric  railroad  station,  the 
visitor  sees  before  him,  a  few  yards  distant,  the  Great 
Harbour's  smaller,  inner  fold,  known  in  antiquity  as 
**The  Marsh"  (Port  d'Halae)  or,  perhaps,  as  the 
"Blind"  Harbour.  This  inner  harbour,  roughly  a 
third  of  a  mile  by  a  sixth  in  size,  now  furnishes  ample 
accommodation  for  smaller  craft  and  a  convenient 
landing-place,  although  in  Conon's  day  it  was  probably 
more  of  a  marshy  barrier  than  a  navigable  sheet  of 
water.  If  the  whole  contour  of  the  two  harbours  to- 
gether suggested  the  designation  of  "Cantharus,"  it 
may  have  been  from  either  the  meaning  "Beetle,"  or 
that  of  "Two-handled  Cup."  Until  recently,  the  name 
was  identified  with  the  southernmost  portion  only  of 
the  Great  Harbour.  The  locus  classicus  is  the  "  Peace" 
of  Aristophanes.  Daedalus  and  Icarus  with  their  flying- 
machines  had  long  since  anticipated  the  modem  aero- 
plane, and  in  this  comedy  Trygaeus  in  search  of  Peace 


36    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

starts  out  to  navigate  Zeus's  ether-  on  his  ^'beetle." 
Then,  as  now,  a  safe  landing-place  for  the  airship  was 
a  desideratum,  and  Trygaeus  states  that  he  will  have 
as  a  safe  mooring  "  the  Cantharus  harbour  in  Piraeus."  * 

Skirting  now  the  northern  margin  of  the  inner  har- 
bour, the  route  will  follow  in  part  the  probable  line  of 
the  demolished  wall  of  Themistocles,  which  extended 
on  and  reached  the  water  outside  both  the  peninsula  of 
Eetioneia  and  the  outer  bay  of  Krommydaru,  where 
traces  of  the  more  ancient  fortifications  are  still  extant. 
Close  by  the  modem  station  of  the  Larisa  railway, 
however,  will  be  found  the  very  considerable  ruins  of  a 
gateway  identified  with  the  Conon  walls.  This  alone  is 
an  ample  reward  for  the  long  detour  around  the  har- 
bour. 

If  time  and  energy  permit,  it  is  well  worth  while, 
instead  of  crossing  by  boat  to  Akte,  to  return  to  the 
starting-point  and  to  saunter  along  the  whole  margin  of 
the  Great  Harbour.  Particularly  picturesque  are  the 
great  sloops,  laden  with  lemons  and  oranges,  moored 
in  behind  the  Karaiskakis  square,  which  only  the  pe- 
destrian would  be  likely  to  discover.  As  one  lingers 
along  the  quays,  however,  modem  warships  and  all  the 
craft  for  commerce  and  travel  will  give  place  to  the 
memories  evoked  from  the  greater  past.  This  harbour 

*  The  Cantharus,  or  beetle,  of  Trygaeus  is  likened  in  the  comedy 
to  a  Naxian  boat,  a  resemblance  easily  recognized  in  the  drinking-cup 
called  "Cantharus,"  with  its  two  projecting  handles  for  bow  and 
stern. 


PIR^US,  THE  HARBOUR  TOWN        37 

of  commerce  will,  in  imagination,  be  once  more  crowded 
with  triremes,  brought  around  from  the  two  war- 
harbours  on  the  other  side,  to  be  inspected  one  after 
the  other  by  the  Council  of  the  Five  Hundred.  As  offi- 
cial inspectors  of  the  triremes,  when  made  ready  to  set 
out  for  conquest  or  defeat,  this  Council  held  its  sittings 
on  the  Choma,  probably  a  little  promontory  that  juts 
southward  from  the  Karaiskakis  Place.  One  may  recall, 
with  the  help  of  Thucydides,  the  setting  out  of  the  ill- 
starred  Sicilian  expedition.  No  such  vast  array  had 
ever  left  the  harbour  for  so  distant  and  protracted  a 
warfare.  All  the  citizens  of  Athens  as  well  as  of  Piraeus 
are  here  to  witness  the  departure  of  sons  and  friends. 
High  hopes  of  imperial  expansion  feed  the  imagination 
of  the  multitude.  Some  rest  their  confidence  on  divine 
favour  sure  to  accompany  the  pious,  though  reluctant, 
Nicias ;  others  put  faith  in  the  warrior  Lamachus ;  more 
in  the  brilliant  Alcibiades,  still  idolized  though  accused 
of  sharing  in  the  mutilation  of  the  Hermae.  The  great 
fleet  of  swift  triremes  is  ready,  together  with  the  trans- 
ports for  heavy-armed  soldiers,  equipments,  and  sup- 
plies. Now  the  men  are  all  on  board  and  a  hush  falls 
upon  the  throng  at  a  sudden  blast  of  the  trumpet.  The 
prayers,  according  to  established  ritual,  are  offered  by 
the  united  squadron.  At  a  concerted  sign,  the  mixing- 
bowls  are  crowned  throughout  the  whole  host  and  the 
men  and  generals  pour  libations  from  gold  and  silver 
cups.  The  throngs  upon  the  land,  both  citizens  and  for- 
eign well-wishers,  join  in  the  service.  The  hymn  of  tri- 


38    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

umph  sung,  the  libations  poured,  the  ships  weigh  anchor 
and  put  to  sea.  But  before  the  last  trireme  has  passed 
through  the  moles,  and  while  the  ear  still  catches  the 
notes  of  the  flute  and  the  voice  of  the  KeleustcB,  giving 
the  time  to  the  crews,  a  revulsion  of  grim  presentiment 
overmasters  many  of  the  watchers  on  the  shore.  The 
expedition  now  no  longer  seems  what  they  so  lightly 
voted  in  the  assembly.  The  ever-recurrent  Greek  feel- 
ing that  "high  things  annoy  the  god"  calls  up  the 
warning  words  of  ^schylus,  uttered  a  generation  be- 
fore, in  the  year  of  the  unlucky  Egyptian  expedition 
sent  out  on  a  similar  venture :  — 

Grown  Insolence  is  wont  to  breed 

Young  Insolence  midst  mortals'  sorrow, 
Then,  then,  when  to  th'  implanted  seed 

There  comes  the  birth-light's  destined  morrow. 

Or.  else  his  immortal  lament  "over  the  unretuming 
brave"  comes  unbidden  to  their  lips:  — 

Whom  one  sent  forth  to  war  one  knows,  but,  in  the 
stead  of  men,  come  back  unto  the  homes  of  each  but  urns 
and  ashes. 

The  mysterious  mutilation  of  the  Hermae  is  fresh  in 
mind  and  the  fear  of  angered  gods  reasserts  its  sway. 
But  no  presentiment  of  ill  could  anticipate  the  reality  of 
the  disaster  in  the  harbour  of  Syracuse  or  the  slow  tor- 
tures of  living  death  in  its  stone  quarries.  A  chance  for 
retaliation  in  kind  was  indeed  to  come.  In  a  Piraeus 
stone  quarry  Syracusan  captives  were  in  turn  impris- 
oned a  few  years  later,  but  they,  more  lucky  than  the 


PIR^US,  THE  HARBOUR  TOWN        39 

Athenians,  cut  their  way  to  freedom  from  their  rock- 
bound  prison. 

Despite  the  imperious  insolence  of  Athens  and  her 
unrighteous  schemes  for  aggrandizement,  our  sym- 
pathy in  the  tragedy  is  ever  fresh.  By  the  harbour  side 
we  mourn  to-day  the  predestined  doom  of  the  gallant 
squadron  and  the  stricken  city.  Through  the  ebb  and 
flow  of  hope  and  disaster,  the  thought  sweeps  on  to  the 
close  of  the  war  and  the  humiliation  of  Athens  at  the 
hands  of  Sparta;  the  destruction  of  the  Long  Walls, 
their  rebuilding  and  the  refortification  of  Piraeus  under 
Conon;  the  aftermath  of  Athenian  power;  the  brilliant 
age  of  Plato  and  the  orators;  the  struggle  with  Philip; 
the  fall  of  Greek  liberty;  the  sway  of  Macedon;  the 
Roman  conquest,  with  the  long,  stubborn  siege  of 
Piraeus  so  graphically  described  by  Appian.  Sulla, 
exasperated  by  the  long  defence  of  the  Mithridatic 
army,  with  whom  the  Athenians  had  cast  in  their  lot, 
burnt  the  arsenal  and  docks  and  razed  the  fortifications 
so  utterly  that  the  Roman  governor,  Sulpicius,  in  writ- 
ing to  his  friend  Cicero  in  45  b.  c,  could  describe 
Piraeus  as  the  "corpse"  of  a  great  city.  In  the  second 
century  of  our  era  it  had  resumed  a  semblance  of  com- 
mercial prosperity.  Lucian,  in  his  dialogue,  ''When 
My  Ship  Comes  In,"  goes  down  to  Piraeus  with  a  friend 
to  admire  a  great  grain  transport  that  has  just  put  into 
harbour  on  its  way  from  Egypt  to  Rome.  For  a  mer- 
chantman it  is  large;  some  180  feet  long,  45  in  beam, 
and  over  40  feet  in  depth  to  the  hold.    The  prow 


40    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

stretches  out  long,  and  at  the  stem  is  the  gilded  figure- 
head of  a  goose  with  its  graceful  curving  neck.  The 
two  friends  wonder  at  a  sailor  mounting  nimbly  by  the 
swaying  ropes  and  running  out  nonchalantly  along 
the  great  yardarm,  as  he  holds  on  by  the  yardsheets. 
But  the  generous  cargo  of  grain,  enough,  as  we  are 
told,  to  feed  Athens  for  a  year,  is  destined  for  Rome. 
Athens  was  no  longer  the  emporium  of  the  eastern 
Mediterranean.  She  had  become  a  way-station.  No 
longer  could  she  enforce  the  old  law,  mentioned  by 
Aristotle,  which  required  that  two  thirds  of  the  cargo 
of  every  grain-ship  that  put  into  Piraeus  must  be  car- 
ried up  to  the  metropolis. 

After  Roman  times,  in  the  long  atrophy  of  the  By- 
zantine age,  Piraeus  dwindled  to  a  group  of  fishermen's 
huts.  It  revived  somewhat  under  De  la  Roche  in 
the  fourteenth  century,  and  thereafter  at  least  was 
known  as  Porto  Leone  from  the  seated  figure  of  a 
marble  lion  that  kept  guard  among  the  ruins  like  the 
majestic  lion  that  still  sentinels  the  batdefield  of  Chae- 
ronea.  In  the  seventeenth  century,  the  Venetians  car- 
ried off  this  Piraeus  lion,  and  now,  seated  by  another 
arsenal  in  another  seaport,  careless  of  the  passing 
tourist,  it  looks  grimly  over  the  Adriatic  where  steam- 
ers come  and  go  between  the  neighbouring  Trieste 
and  its  native  land. 

Leaving  now  the  Great  Harbour  and  our  meditations 
on  the  vicissitudes  of  history,  we  resume  our  inspection 
of  the  fan-shaped  peninsula.   Without  a  special  permit 


PIR^US,  THE  HARBOUR  TOWN       41 

the  visitor  is  excluded  from  the  western  end  and  from 
the  Royal  Garden  which  encloses  ruins,  perhaps  the 
site  of  the  Tomb  of  Themistocles,  if  indeed  his  bones 
were  ever  brought  back  from  burial  in  exile.  His  offi- 
cial tomb  was  in  Magnesia  in  Caria.  A  public  interment 
in  his  native  land  could  not  be  granted  to  one  exiled  as 
a  traitor.  Thucydides  knows  only  of  a  secret  burial 
of  his  bones  in  Attica.  The'remains  of  the  monument  in 
question  stand  on  the  point  of  Akte  near  the  entrance  to 
the  outermost  harbour.  From  this  tomb  the  great  admi- 
ral's spirit  could  still  watch  over  the  Athenian  sea-power. 
Skepticism  about  the  site  is  forgotten  when  we  read  the 
fragment,  meagre  as  it  is,  of  the  comic  poet  Plato: — 

Fair  is  the  outlook  where  thy  mounded  tomb  is  placed. 
For  it  will  signal  merchantmen  from  here  and  yon, 
It  will  behold  the  sailors  faring  out  and  in, 
Will  be  spectator  of  the  triremes'  racing  oars. 

This  "contest  of  the  triremes"  may  allude  to  the  boat- 
race  in  which  the  course  lay  from  Cantharus  harbour 
around  the  whole  peninsula  to  Munychia.  These  races 
in  sacred  ships  were  part  of  the  systematic  training  of 
the  Attic  youths. 

The  public  road  leads  over  the  shoulder  of  the  hill 
and,  in  descending  again  to  the  coast,  offers  a  beautiful 
view  to  the  west  and  south  over  the  Saronic  Gulf.  The 
driveway  then  runs  along  the  water's  edge  around  the 
promontory,  keeping  close  inside  the  ruined  ''Wall  of 
Conon."  Although  the  remains  of  this  •  encircling 
wall  rise  nowhere  more  than  several  feet  above  the 


42    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

ground,  and  usually  much  less,  yet  the  very  continuity 
of  the  ruins  is  imposing.  Practically  in  an  unbroken 
line  the  solid  masonry  hems  the  irregular  rim  of  the 
peninsula  from  the  mouth  of  the  Great  Harbour  to  a 
point  not  far  distant  from  the  war-harbour  of  Zea  on 
the  opposite  side  and  may  be  traced  again  intermittently 
around  to  the  Bay  of  Phalerum.  Solid  tower  buttresses 
are  interposed  at  frequent  ^mtervals.  On  this  southern 
shore  of  Akte,  where  the  modern  town  does  not  intrude, 
the  spectator  is  free  to  divide  his  attention  between  the 
beauty  of  the  sea  view  and  thoughts  of  the  past. 

The  picturesque  land-locked  harbours  of  Zea  and 
Mimychia  next  claim  our  interest.  The  pear-shaped 
Zea  basin,  now  known  by  the  Turco- Greek  name  of 
Pashalimani,  makes  into  the  neck  of  the  peninsula 
between  the  promontory  hill  of  Akte  and  the  acropolis 
of  Munychia.  Behind  it  and  close  to  it  was  erected 
in  the  fourth  century  the  great  Arsenal,  and  at  vari- 
ous points  beneath  its  transparent  water  may  still 
be  seen  distinct  remains  of  38  of  the  ship-ways  that 
ran  down  from  the  ancient  ship-houses  where  the 
triremes  were  drawn  up.  Inscriptions  tell  us  that  there 
were  originally  372  in  all,  of  which  82  were  in  Muny- 
chia, 94  in  the  Great  Harbour,  and  the  remainder  in 
Zea.  No  other  relic  of  antiquity  brings  us  into  closer 
touch  with  the  naval  power  of  Athens  and  her  empire 
on  the  iEgean.  The  covered  sheds  themselves  can  only 
be  reconstructed  in  imagination.  Some  broken  columns 
of  the  ship-houses  and  portions  of  the  launching  piers 


PIR^US,  THE  HARBOUR  TOWN        43 

remain  in  situ.  To  accommodate  the  196  triremes, 
130-165  feet  long,  assigned  to  the  Zea  Harbour,  some 
of  the  houses  must  have  been  constructed  so  as  to  dock 
the  boats  in  at  least  two  tiers.  At  Syracuse,  the  for- 
midable Piraeus  of  the  west,  remains  of  ship-sheds 
have  been  found,  and  at  Carthage,  the  bitter  foe  of 
Syracuse,  they  remained  for  Appian  to  describe.  Dry- 
docks  may  have  existed  near  the  harbour  entrance.  This 
narrow  neck  of  the  pear-shaped  harbour  was  still 
further  guarded  at  the  inner  opening  by  projecting 
moles,  which  here  also  are  still  extant.  The  entrance 
was  actually  closed,  in  case  of  need,  by  chains  extended 
across  at  the  surface  of  the  water.  Of  the  proud  war- 
ships themselves,  those  chargers  of  the  sea  stabled  in 
Zea,  there  remains  one  realistic  reminder.  Their  tim- 
bers have  long  since  rotted  away,  the  gulfs  have  washed 
down  all  such  small  objects  of  durable  material  as 
bronze  nails  and  clamps,  but  some  heavy  plates  of 
Parian  marble  have  been  found  in  the  harbour.  These 
were  set  into  the  bows  of  the  warships,  and  thus, 
painted  and  shaped  as  vessels'  eyes,  they  used  to  keep 
fierce  outlook  for  the  enemy  or  peer  through  the  gloom 
of  night  and  storm  for  the  first  sight  of  the  shoreward 
lights  of  Piraeus.  Danaus  at  Argos,  in  the  "  Suppliants" 
of  iEschylus,  as  he  sees  the  approaching  ship,  ex- 
claims :  — 

The  bellying  sails  I  see;  the  ox-hide  bulwarks  stretched 
Along  the  vessel's  sides;  the  prow  that  with  its  eyes 
Peers  forward  o'er  the  course. 


44    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

On  the  marble  plates  actually  recovered  the  iris  is 
painted  bright  red  or  blue,  and  a  vacant  hole  in  the 
middle  suggests  the  head  of  a  burnished  bronze  nail 
that  served  at  once  as  the  pupil  of  the  eye  and  to  rivet 
on  the  plate.  These  eyes  are  common  in  representations 
of  ancient  vessels,  and  only  in  recent  years  are  they 
disappearing  from  use  among  Sicilian  and  Italian  boat- 
men. 

The  most  casual  survey  of  this  protected  haven  will 
justify  the  sagacity  of  Themistocles  in  concentrating 
his  energy  upon  Pirajus.  His  proposition  to  transfer 
Athens  altogether  to  the  seaport  was  strategically  wise. 
The  extent  of  the  Long  Walls,  uniting  the  two  into  a 
double  city,  was  a  source  of  weakness,  as  it  drained  the 
defenders  away  from  both  towns.  But  it  was  a  true 
instinct  of  the  Athenians,  which  posterity  endorses,  to 
cling  to  the  sentiments  evoked  by  their  ancient  city  and 
in  it  to  develop  to  the  full  their  intellectual  empire. 

It  is  probable  that  the  extant  traces  of  the  ship- 
sheds  in  the  two  war-harbours  date  back  only  as  far 
as  the  fourth  century  b.  c,  but  the  number  and  size 
fairly  represent  the  older  Periclean  constructions.  The 
Thirty  Tyrants  destroyed  the  former  ship-sheds,  as 
Isocrates  tells  us,  and  sold  for  three  talents  (about 
$3100)  the  material  of  these  buildings  upon  which  the 
city  had  spent  more  than  one  thousand  talents. 

The  ruins  of  the  "Wall  of  Conon"  can  still  be  traced 
for  some  distance  to  the  east  after  leaving  the  harbour 
of  Zea,  and  at  the  southeastern  promontory  the  ruins 


PIR^US,  THE  HARBOUR  TOWN        45 

of  ancient  fortifications  are  again  to  be  seen.  The  har- 
bour of  Munychia  (modem  Phanari)  is  smaller  than 
that  of  Zea.  Its  contour  is  so  perfect  an  oval  as  to  seem 
artificial.  It  had  space  to  accommodate  only  eighty- 
two  triremes  in  ship-houses,  scanty  remains  of  which 
are  here  visible  under  the  water. 

At  the  east  side  the  ruined  wall  may  again  be  traced 
to  the  Bay  of  Phalerum  or  (Greek)  Phaleron,  and 
beyond,  curving  around  the  Munychia  acropoUs  to  com- 
plete the  circuit  to  the  north  of  the  town. 

Further  east,  on  the  open  bay  of  Phaleron,  is  New 
Phaleron,  a  bathing  resort  as  frankly  modem  as  the 
Lido  at  Venice.  The  exact  site  of  Old  Phaleron  is  open 
to  dispute,  but  the  walk  between  it  and  Athens  was  a 
favourite  constitutional  in  Plato's  time.  Many  a  classic 
conversation  was  held  here  on  the  way.  In  the  '^  Sym- 
posium" of  Plato,  Glaucon  asks  Apollodorus:  ''Isn't 
the  road  to  Athens  just  made  for  conversation  ?  "  Now 
the  banaUty  and  the  bareness  of  the  city's  outskirts 
intrude  sadly  upon  the  pedestrian's  philosophic  equi- 
poise, both  here  and  on  the  other  road  between  Athens 
and  Piraeus  where  Lucian  and  his  friend,  in  the  second 
century  of  our  era,  could  still  find  shelter  from  the  hot 
sun  under  some  olive  trees  by  the  wayside  and  "sit 
down  to  rest  upon  an  overtumed  stele." 

The  focus  of  the  inner  city  life  was  the  splendid 
Agora  laid  out  by  the  famous  architect  Hippodamus. 
Here  ended  the  road  from  Athens.  This  square  was 
probably  west  of  Munychia  north  of  the  Zea  harbour, 


46    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

perhaps  about  where  the  present  Athena  street  inter- 
sects Munychia  avenue.  Near  it  were  probably  grouped 
various  sanctuaries.  Xenophon  tells  how  in  the  civil 
war  the  patriotic  party,  "the  men  from  Phyle,"  unable 
to  exclude  "the  City  party"  from  the  whole  of  Piraeus, 
fell  back  on  the  Munychia  hill,  and  the  men  from 
Athens  blocked  up  the  avenue  that  leads  to  the  temple 
of  Bendis  and  to  the  sanctuary  of  Munychian  Artemis. 
By  this  Market-place,  too,  houses  of  rich  residents  were 
probably  built. 

The  Piraeus  was  essentially  a  democratic  strong- 
hold. It  was  the  rendezvous  for  the  patriotic  anti- Spar- 
tan party;  and  Plato,  with  all  his  aristocratic  leanings, 
chose  to  lay  at  Piraeus  the  opening  scene  and  setting  for 
his  greatest  dialogue,  the  "  RepubUc."  It  was  the  fitting 
propylaea  for  his  ideal  city  as  well  as  for  the  real  Athens. 
"I  went  down  yesterday,"  Socrates  begins,  "to  Piraeus 
with  Glaucon,  both  to  make  a  prayer  to  the  goddess 
and  to  take  a  look  at  the  festival  to  see  how  they  would 
carry  it  off,  inasmuch  as  they  are  now  celebrating  it 
for  the  first  time."  The  Thracian  residents,  it  seems, 
had  just  introduced  a  celebration  in  honour  of  their 
goddess  Bendis,  and  the  natives  had  united  with  them. 
The  whole  port  was  en  fete  with  processions  conducted 
both  by  the  hospitable  native  citizens  and  the  Thra- 
cians  themselves.  In  the  evening  there  was  to  be  a 
torch-race  followed  by  an  all-night  festival.  Socrates, 
who  was  on  the  point  of  returning  to  Athens  after  wit- 
nessing the  daylight  processions,  was  easily  persuaded 


PIR.f:US,  THE  HARBOUR  TOWN        47 

by  Polemarchus  to  stay  over  for  the  torch-race,  dining 
first  at  the  house  of  his  father,  the  rich  and  hospitable 
old  metic,  Cephalus.  At  the  house  Socrates  finds  an- 
other son,  Lysias,  who  was  soon  to  become  famous  as 
an  orator.  For  the  Thirty  were  t&  plunder  the  pro- 
perty bequeathed  by  Cephalus  to  his  sons,  all  the 
ready  money,  the  shield  factory,  and  the  slaves;  were 
to  put  summarily  to  death  young  Polemarchus;  and 
were  to  force  Lysias,  reduced  to  sudden  poverty,  to 
betake  himself  to  speech-writing  for  a  living.  His 
crowning  effort  was  an  arraignment  of  his  brother's 
murderers.  Most  skilful  of  narrators,  he  tells  of  the  fate 
of  Polemarchus;  how  his  house  was  plundered;  how 
his  wife  was  robbed  of  the  very  ear-rings  from  her  ears ; 
and  how  after  his  execution,  notwithstanding  the  just 
title  of  the  family  to  large  holdings  of  real  estate,  he 
was  buried  from  a  hired  shed,  one  friend  providing 
a  robe,  another  a  pillow,  for  the  corpse.  He  tells,  too, 
of  his  own  arrest  at  his  home  by  the  emissaries  of  the 
Thirty:  how  he  bargained  for  his  life  with  a  sum  of 
ready  money ;  how  one  of  his  captors  followed  him  into 
the  inner  room,  looked  over  his  shoulder  into  the  money- 
chest,  and  took  not  only  the  price  agreed  upon  but  all 
the  contents  of  the  strong  box;  how  he  was  taken  to 
another  house  of  a  Piraeus  acquaintance;  and  how, 
while  his  captors  were  keeping  guard  at  the  peristyle 
door  in  front,  he  had  escaped  by  a  back  door  to  the 
house  of  a  friend,  the  shipmaster,  with  the  appropriate 
name  of  Archenaus.   So,  while  his  less  fortunate  bro- 


48    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

ther,  Polemarchus,  is  led  off  to  Athens,  thrown  into 
prison,  and  "bidden  by  the  Thirty  their  usual  bidding 
—  to  drink  hemlock,"  Lysias,  by  the  aid  of  his  nauti- 
cal friend,  Is  embarked  for  Megara  under  cover  of 
night.  We  should'  like  to  have  fuller  details  of  that  es- 
cape of  the  young  Lysias,  yesterday  a  wealthy  manu- 
facturer, to-day  a  plimdered  fugitive  but  destined  to 
become  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  "ten"  orators  and  a 
master  architect  of  Attic  style.  Perhaps  a  small  boat 
put  off  from  some  lonely  spot  oil  Akte,  perhaps  from 
the  Great  Harbour  itself,  shooting  through  the  moles 
in  the  darkness  and,  wind  and  weather  permitting, 
kept  to  starboard  of  the  Psyttaleia  reef,  passed  up 
through  the  strait  of  Salamis,  on  through  the  beautiful 
Bay  of  Eleusis,  and  landed  the  fugitive  at  Megara. 

Plato's  account  of  the  visit  of  Socrates  to  the  Piraeus 
homestead  carries  us  back  to  the  days  of  security  be- 
fore the  reign  of  the  Thirty.  We  see  old  Cephalus 
welcoming  Socrates  cordially,  delivering  a  monologue 
on  his  own  gracious  old  age,  telling  a  story  about  Sopho- 
cles in  his  later  years,  and  finally  withdrawing  to  super- 
vise a  sacrifice  to  the  gods. 

The  introduction  of  a  foreign  divinity  like  Bendis 
of  the  Thracians  was  not  unusual.  The  celebration, 
described  at  the  opening  of  the  "Republic,"  was  at  least 
no  more  exotic  than  a  St.  Patrick's  day  in  America. 
Foreigners  and  natives  united  in  it  as  they  did  in  the 
celebration  of  the  Mother  of  the  Gods.  The  customs 
inspection  of  foreign  deities  was  lenient.   The  Greeks 


PIR^US,   THE  HARBOUR  TOWN       49 

were  free  traders  both  in  art  and  religion,  though  the 
finished  product  imported  was  likely  enough  to  be  used 
as  new  material.  Into  the  smelting  furnace  of  the 
classic  period  were  cast  the  old,  the  new,  the  foreign, 
and  the  domestic,  to  reappear  in  fairer  form,  stamped 
with  the  Hellenic  hall-mark.  Among  the  various  im- 
ported deities,  Cybele  is  well  vouched  for  at  Piraeus 
where  a  number  of  marble  votive  shrines  of  the  Great 
Mother  have  been  found.  One  of  these  archaic  Cybele 
reliefs,  brought  from  Piraeus  to  the  National  Museum 
in  Athens,  shows  the  goddess  with  her  lion  in  her  lap, 
her  cymbals  in  her  hand.  The  "new  theology,"  fos- 
tered by  Euripides  and  domiciled  in  daily  life  by  the 
"New  Comedy,"  could  treat  these  cymbals  as  typical 
of  "a  creed  out-worn."  One  of  Menander's  characters 
exclaims :  — 

No  god^  my  wife,  saves  one  man  through  another's  help, 
For  if  a  human  being  can  by  cymbals'  clash 
Deflect  the  god  to  whatsoever  is  desired, 
Then  greater  than  the  god  is  he  that  doeth  this. 

Among  various  resident  colonists  who  may  have 
occupied  distinct  sections  of  the  city,  like  a  mediaeval 
Ghetto  or  a  modem  Italian  quarter,  the  worship  of 
home  divinities  was  kept  alive.  It  is  known,  for  ex- 
ample, that  the  Egyptian  resident  merchants,  perhaps 
as  early  as  the  end  of  the  fifth  century,  had  received  a 
special  license  to  erect  an  Isis  sanctuary  and  the  Cyp- 
rians instituted  a  similar  cult  of  Adonis  and  Aphrodite. 

Remains  of  the  old  gateway  in  the  northern  circuit- 


50    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

wall,  just  where  the  north  Long  Wall  joined  on,  are  still 
extant.  Within  a  century,  the  traces  of  the  Long  Walls 
themselves  have  been  disappearing.  Enough  is  left, 
however,  to  mark  their  course  at  various  points,  and  the 
remains  are  particularly  plain  of  the  "South"  Long 
Wall,  where  it  nears  the  Munychia  acropolis.  Ascend- 
ing Munychia,  we  may  imagine  the  Long  Walls  still 
reaching  up  to  Athens.  We  may  picture  them  either 
in  time  of  war,  with  defenders  within  and  foes  without, 
or  in  time  of  peace,  with  the  stream  of  pedestrians  bent 
upon  pleasure  or  business.  Outside  the  North  Wall 
was  one  of  the  places  of  execution.  Plato  illustrates 
the  contest  between  the  brute  in  man  and  his  higher 
reason  by  the  story  of  a  certain  Leontius  who  one  day 
was  walking  up  from  Piraeus  and  saw  some  dead  bodies 
fallen  prostrate  by  the  side  of  the  executioner.  He 
loathes  the  sight  but  is  fain  to  look.  Vulgar  curiosity 
gains  the  mastery ;  he  runs  up  to  the  dead  bodies  and, 
holding  his  eyelids  wide  open,  exclaims:  "There 
wretches !  Take  your  fill  of  the  fine  spectacle ! " 

Turning  from  the  course  of  the  Long  Walls,  the  eye 
surveys  the  whole  panorama  of  the  harbours  and  the 
city.  Just  within  the  old  wall,  on  the  west  slope  of  the 
Munychia  hill,  is  the  old  Theatre  in  a  ruined  con- 
dition. But  we  can  think  of  the  harbour  folk  in  days 
of  peace  enjoying  on  these  same  rising  seats  the  plays 
of  a  Menander  or  Euripides  or  see  convened  there  in 
the  times  of  grim  civil  strife  a  hurried  assembly  of  the 
patriotic  party. 


PIR^US,  THE  HARBOUR  TOWN       51 

Somewhere  close  by  the  north  side  of  Zea  was  the 
famous  arsenal  which,  though  not  built  till  near  the 
end  of  the  fourth  century,  has  entirely  disappeared. 
Luckily,  however,  in  1882  there  was  discovered  near 
the  Zea  harbour  a  slab  of  Hymettus  marble  containing 
the  directions  given  to  the  contractors  for  its  construc- 
tion. It  was  built  to  contain  the  rigging,  tackle,  sails, 
cables  for  undergirding  the  ships,  etc.,  while  the  masts, 
spars,  oars,  rudders,  and  other  wooden  gear  seem  to 
have  been  kept  in  the  ship-sheds  themselves  alongside 
of  the  ships.  This  arsenal  of  Philo  replaced  an  older  and 
less  elaborate  one.  It  was  a  large  building,  probably 
four  hundred  by  fifty  feet  within,  and  provided  for  a 
roomy  arcade  where  the  populace,  screened  from  the 
burning  heat  without,  could  promenade  and  gaze  at  the 
suggestive  evidences  of  their  sea  power. 

Of  the  many  private  and  public  buildings,  temples 
and  colonnades  mentioned  by  classic  authors,  but  few 
can  be  positively  located.  In  the  Colonnade  of  the 
Exchange  —  the  Deigma  —  Theophrastus,  Menander's 
friend  and  the  successor  of  Aristotle,  represents  his 
"Boastful  Man,"  a  shipping-merchant,  as  bragging 
about  his  great  ventures  and  cargoes  at  sea.  Mean- 
while his  balance  at  the  banker 's  actually  amounts 
to  about  twenty  cents.  That  this  Deigma,  where 
gossip  was  coined  and  bargains  struck  aroTond  the 
money-changers'  tables,  must  have  been  close  to  the 
edge  of  the  Great  Harbour  is  evident  from  Xenophon, 
who  says  that  one  day  twelve  Lacedaemonian  ^hips 


52    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

swept  into  the  harbour  suddenly,  landed  a  party  and 
carried  off  from  the  Exchange  a  group  of  sea-captains 
and  merchants. 

The  site  of  the  Asklepieion,  partly  church,  partly 
sanatorium,  has  been  identified  in  the  remains  west  of 
Zea.  Aphrodite,  born  of  the  foam,  is  a  popular  god- 
dess with  sailor-folk.  To  her  were  dedicated,  it  would 
seem,  no  less  than  three  sanctuaries  at  Piraeus. 

Lastly,  there  was  the  famous  Hieron  or  Sanctuary 
of  Zeus  and  Athena.  Even  its  site  cannot  now  be  iden- 
tified, but  it  must  have  been  one  of  the  most  frequented 
centres  of  Piraeus  life  in  the  fifth  century.  An  inscrip- 
tion records  that  into  the  treasury  of  this  sanctuary  went 
the  tax  of  a  drachma  on  every  vessel  that  put  into  the 
port.  Incidentally  many  a  further  contribution  was 
levied  on  the  newly  landed  sailor,  who  was  as  much  a 
fish  out  of  water  among  the  land-sharks  as  is  the  mod- 
em Jack  Tar  on  ship's  leave.  The  comic  poet  Diphilus 
tells  how  one  of  these  harbour  caterers  used  to  select 
his  victims:  "For  example  there's  the  skipper  who 
grudgingly  pays  off  a  vow  made  under  stress  of  wea- 
ther when  the  mast  went  by  the  board  or  when  he  had 
snapped  the  rudder-sweeps  of  the  ship  or  else  was 
forced  by  water  rising  in  the  hold  to  hurl  his  cargo 
overboard.  A  wide  berth  I  give  to  a  fellow  like  him. 
Such  a  man  will  not  be  free-handed ;  my  best  chance 
is  with  the  captain  who  has  made  a  quick,  safe  voyage 
from  Byzantium,  who,  all  excitement  over  his  gain  of 
ten  or  twelve  per  cent  for  three  days'  risk,  is  loud  in 


PIR^US,  THE  HARBOUR  TOWN        53 

his  chatter  about  freights  and  usuries."  He's  the  man 
for  the  purposes  of  this  shark,  and  no  sooner  is  he 
landed  than  our  keeper  of  the  Sailors'  Snug  Retreat 
goes  up  to  him,  takes  his  hand,  and  reminds  him  that 
a  sacrifice  at  the  temple  of  Zeus  Preserver  would  be  in 
order.  He  thoughtfully  relieves  the  skipper  of  any  care, 
making  the  purchases,  superintending  the  offering,  and 
sharing  the  commission  with  the  priests  of  the  Hieron. 
And  human  nature  was  much  the  same  five  hun- 
dred years  later,  when  we  again  meet  a  skipper  whose 
performance,  once  he  is  safe  at  Piraeus,  falls  far  short 
of  the  vows  made  in  storm  and  peril.  Lucian,  in  his 
"Zeus  the  Tragedian,"  gives  details.  The  Olympian 
Father,  alarmed  at  the  signs  of  increasing  irreligious- 
ness  and  the  consequent  stringency  in  the  sacrificial 
market,  calls  an  assembly  of  the  gods.  After  some 
difficult  points  of  precedence  as  to  order  of  seating 
have  been  temporarily  waived  and  half-naturalized 
divinities  like  Mithras  and  our  Thracian  Bendis  have 
been  admitted,  Zeus  makes  a  speech.  He  begins 
fluently  enough  with  a  mosaic  of  oratorical  phrases 
which  he  has  memorized  from  Demosthenes.  Pre- 
sently, however,  he  exclaims:  "But  my  Demosthenes 
is  giving  out.  I  must  tell  you  in  plain  Greek  what  has 
troubled  me."  He  reminds  them  of  the  dinner  in  which 
some  of  them  —  "as  many  as  had  been  invited"  — 
had  participated  the  day  before,  when  "Mnesitheus, 
the  ship-owner,  had  given  them  a  Thanksgiving 
banquet  at  Piraeus  on  account  of  the  preservation  of 


54    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

his  vessel  that  had  come  within  an  ace  of  being  wrecked 
off  Euboea."  *'That  evening,"  he  continues,  "while 
taking  a  constitutional,  I  kept  thinking  over  the  stingi- 
ness of  Mnesitheus  who  undertook  to  entertain  sixteen 
gods  by  sacrificing  a  single  cock  —  and  that^  too,  a 
wheezy  old  rooster !  —  with  four  Httle  lumps  of  frank- 
incense so  mouldy  that  they  went  out  forthwith  on  the 
coals,  without  giving  even  the  tip  of  my  nose  a  whiff  of 
the  smoke.  That's  what  he  did,  though  he  was  for 
promising  whole  hecatombs  when  his  boat  was  driving 
on  the  cHff  and  was  already  encircled  by  reefs.'' 

Sometimes  the  fisher- folk  preferred  to  go  up  to 
Athens  and  dedicate  votive  offerings  in  the  Parthe- 
non. Lucian,  in  "The  Fisher,"  when  angling  over  the 
edge  of  the  Acropolis  for  the  scaly  philosophers  of 
the  second  century,  borrows  of  the  Priestess  of  the 
Parthenon  a  rod,  hook,  and  line  that  "the  fisherman 
from  Piraeus  had  dedicated"  as  a  thank-offering. 

Of  the  many  epigrams  in  the  Greek  Anthology  on 
shipwrecked  mariners,  the  most  appropriate  to  our 
harbour  town  is  perhaps  the  one  written  by  Antipater 
of  Sidon  for  the  tomb  of  a  certain  Aristagoras  who  was 
drowned  after  reaching  harbour  at  Scarphe.  We  are 
reminded  of  the  Piraeus  temple  to  Aphrodite  of  the 
Fair  Voyage  by  the  bitterness  with  which  the  poet 
uses  the  epithet :  — 

Ever  the  sea  is  the  sea.   Tt  is  idle  to  blame 
Cyclades'  waves  or  the  Needles  or  Narrows  of  Helle; 
Them  I  escaped  to  be  drowned  in  the  harbour  of  Scarphe. 
Vain  is  their  fame. 


PIRi^US,  THE   HARBOUR  TOWN        55 

Pray,  if  you  will,  for  a  fair  voyaging  homeward,  but  say: 
Here  in  his  tomb  Aristagoras  knows  of  the  sea  and  its  way  — 
Ever  the  same. 

It  requires  no  great  stretch  of  the  imagination  to  re- 
produce the  thrill  of  pride  and  delight  with  which  the 
Attic  demesman,  whether  sailor  or  soldier,  fisherman 
or  merchant,  returning  from  abroad  sighted  the  heights 
of  Akte  and  the  Munychia  acropolis  and  sailed  up  to 
the  beautiful,  dignified  city  built  around  its  strong, 
fortified  harbours.  Even  after  independent  Athens  had 
been  incorporated  in  the  Macedonian  empire,  Menan- 
der  could  record  this  patriotic  delight.  In  a  fragment 
from  his  "Fishers"  a  sailor,  returning  perhaps  to  Pi- 
raeus, falls  down  and  kisses  the  earth,  exclaiming :  — 

Greeting,  O  dear  my  country,  long  the  time  gone  by 
Till  now  I  see  and  kiss  thee.   Not  to  every  land 
Would  I  do  this,  but  only  when  I  see  my  own. 
The  land  that  bred  me  is  a  goddess  in  my  eyes. 

We  think  of  Menander  himself  as  a  frequent  visitor  to 
the  harbour  town.  Tradition  says  that  he  was  drowned 
while  bathing  at  the  harbour  and  his  countrymen  gave 
him  a  tomb  and  an  epitaph  on  the  road  from  Piraeus  to 
Athens  by  the  Long  Walls.  There,  too,  was  the  ceno- 
taph of  Euripides,  who  had  sailed  away  to  the  court 
of  the  Macedonian  king,  never  again  to  enter  through 
the  harbour's  arms  that  welcomed  so  many  returning 
voyagers. 

And  the  Athenian  of  the  third  century,  returning 
as  we  do  now,  from  a  visit  to  Piraeus,  would  see  these 
tombs  as  he  left  the  harbour  walls  and  perhaps  find 


$6         GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

compensation  for  the  loss  of  external  liberty  in  realizing 
that  the  great  sea- fortress  and  the  maritime  empire  of 
Themistocles,  of  Pericles,  and  of  Conon  had  buttressed 
well  a  Greater  Athens;  that  neither  Spartan  jealousy 
and  civil  discord,  nor  even  the  foreign  rule  of  Macedon 
itself  could  destroy  the  real  power  of  this  Mother  city 
and  obliterate  her  sway  over  the  human  mind.  But 
it  required  the  perspective  of  longer  time  and  the  ideal- 
ism of  a  Shelley  boldly  to  interpret  disaster  in  terms  of 
victory  and  to  proclaim  Athens  as  mistress  of  a  sea 
wider  than  the  iEgean :  — 

"Greece  and  her  foundations  are 
Laid  below  the  tides  of  war, 
Based  on  the  crystalline  sea 
Of  thought  and  its  eternity." 

The  launching-ways  of  the  ancient  triremes,  still  seen 
beneath  the  clear  water,  symbolize  that  continued 
hegemony. 


CHAPTER  III 

ATHENS:  FROM  SOLON  TO  THE  BATTLE  OF 
SALAMIS 

Here,  stranger,  seek  no  tyrant.   This  our  state  is  ruled 
Not  of  .one  man.   'T  is  free.   The  people  year  by  year 
As  kings  succeed  each  other,  never  yield  they  most 
To  Wealth,  but  even  he  that's  poor  has  equal  share. 

Euripides,  Supplices. 

MANY  a  visitor,  led  to  Athens  by  interest  in 
its  associations  and  its  art,  has  been  sur- 
prised by  its  great  physical  beauty.  The 
drive  from  Piraeus,  through  the  banal  outskirts  of  the 
growing  city,  is,  indeed,  a  disenchanting  approach,  but 
one  has  only  to  walk  to  the  Corinthian  columns  of  the 
Olympieum  to  obtain  a  satisfying  view  of  the  Acropo- 
lis, embedded  like  a  crystal  in  its  proper  matrix  of 
encompassing  air  and  plain  and  sea  and  mountains. 
Future  journeys  in  Greece  will  but  reenforce  the  con- 
viction of  the  noble  loveliness  of  the  Attic  plain.  The 
atmosphere  is  singularly  clear  and  vibrant,  and  within 
it  colour  and  form  are  sharply  defined.  The  iEgean 
at  its  shores  adds  movement  and  space.  And  here  more 
than  an)rwhere  else  Sir  Richard  Jebb's  description  of 
the  Greek  hills  seems  inevitable.  Their  forms  "are 
at  once  so  bold  and  so  chastened,  the  onward  sweep  of 
their  ranges  is  at  once  so  elastic  and  so  calm,  each 


58    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

member  of  every  group  is  at  once  so  individual  and  so 
finely  helpful  to  the  ethereal  expressiveness  of  the  rest, 
that  the  harmony  of  their  undulations  and  the  cadences 
in  which  they  fall  combine  the  charm  of  sculpture  with 
the  Ufe  and  variety  of  a  sunlit  sea." 

In  making  such  a  study  of  this  city  as  is  demanded 
for  turning  the  quick  appreciation  of  its  external  charm 
into  the  more  permanent  possession  of  its  underlying 
qualities,  we  must  submit  to  some  analysis  of  the 
great  moments  in  its  history  and  its  literature. 

When  Athenian  literature  begins  with  Solon,  in  the 
sixth  century,  b.  c,  the  Greeks  have  emerged  from 
a  dim  antiquity.  In  the  two  preceding  centuries,  the 
mother  cities  of  Achaean  and  Dorian  Greece  had  been 
sending  out  colonists  east  and  west,  not  merely  in  a 
spirit  of  Phoenician  commerciaHsm,  but  also  with 
adventuresome,  intellectual  curiosity.  The  heroes  of 
their  earliest  traditional  literature  sailed  with  them. 
Associations  half  slumbering  in  the  popular  conscious- 
ness thrilled  them  as  they  steered  again  over  the  course 
of  the  Argo  or  as  they  followed  once  more  the  later 
track  of  Odysseus  to  the  west,  and  in  lower  Italy  and 
Sicily  reestablished  Great  Hellas  as  an  integral  part  of 
Hellenic  civilization. 

In  this  earlier  colonization  Athens  participated  only 
vicariously,  but  it  was  into  this  larger  Hellas  that  Solon 
the  lawgiver  and  poet  was  bom.  Fire,  brought  from 
the  mother  cities,  was  blazing  on  the  hearths  of  Greek 
colonies  from  the  Crimea  to  Sicily.  The  lonians  of  Asia 


ATHENS,  TO  BATTLE  OF  SALAMIS  59 

Minor  had  long  since  joined  in  the  movement  of  expan- 
sion ;  they  were  presently  to  colonize  the  site  of  modem 
Marseilles;  they  were  already  converting  to  their  own 
use  the  distant  outposts  of  the  "  Tyrian  trader."  Athens 
meanwhile  was  slowly  developing.  Later  she  would 
herself  be  mistress  of  the  sea. 

The  Athenians,  more  than  most  Greeks,  could  boast 
that  they  were  autochthonous,  earth-born  children  of 
their  own  soil.  Isocrates  in  his  "  Panegyricus  "  makes 
proudly  the  claim:  "We  dwell  in  the  land  not  after 
expelling  others,  nor  even  finding  it  a  desert,  nor  even 
coming  as  a  mixed  breed  collected  from  many  nations, 
but  .  .  .  sprung  from  the  soil  and  able  to  address 
our  city  by  the  same  names  as  we  give  to  the  closest 
relations."  The  prehistoric  Greek  invaders  of  Attica 
had  fused  with  rather  than  driven  out  the  former  occu- 
pants, the  Pelasgians  or  whoever  they  may  have  been. 
Erichthonius,  Erechtheus,  or  Poseidon,  "one  form 
for  many  names,"  was  born  of  Earth  but  mothered  on 
Athena,  and  it  would  have  been  as  futile  as  it  was 
impious  to  challenge  the  pedigree  of  the  Erechtheidae. 
Erechtheus-Poseidon  might  coil  forever  undisturbed 
beneath  the  sheltering  shield  of  the  Virgin-goddess. 
Cecrops,  too,  the  mythical  king  and  Attic  hero,  owned 
a  perpetual  ground-rent  on  the  Acropolis  and  the 
Athenians  were  Cecropidae.  They  were  also  the  "  Sons 
of  Hephaestus,"  who  was  often  associated  with  Athena, 
a  partnership  of  the  heavenly  wisdom  with  the  arts 
and  crafts.  An  ancient  festival  of  the  whole  city,  held 


6o    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

in  honour  of  Athena,  became  afterwards  specialized 
among  the  artisans,  under  the  name  of  Chalkeia,  in 
honour  of  Hephaestus ;  and  the  god  may  yet  win  back 
as  his  own  "  Hephaesteum "  the  so-called  "Theseum" 
on  the  hill  above  the  classic  market-place. 

The  age  of  the  heroes  merges  with  that  of  the  Kings. 
Theseus  moves,  a  grandiose  figure,  through  art  and 
Hterature.  Thus  when  the  "Hill  party"  of  Pisistratus 
became  preeminent,  Theseus,  the  aristocrat,  came  into 
prominence  in  vase  painting.  He  appears  in  all  the 
forms  of  didactic  sculpture,  and  the  "  City  of  Theseus," 
the  older  Athens,  is  recalled  again  in  the  Roman  re- 
naissance by  the  Arch  of  Hadrian.  This  still  offers 
to  the  modem  pilgrim,  on  the  west  side  facing  the 
Acropolis,  the  inscription:  "This  is  the  Athens  of  The- 
seus, the  old  city,"  and  on  the  other,  facing  the  Olym- 
pieum  of  Hadrian:  "This  is  the  City  of  Hadrian  and 
not  the  City  of  Theseus."  Thus  meet  the  old  and  the 
new,  with  classic  Athens  ignored. 

To  understand  the  literature  of  the  sixth  century, 
we  must  remember  that  the  ancient  citadel  town  of  the 
prehistoric  kings  had  long  since  overflowed  into  the 
district  at  its  immediate  base,  absorbing,  as  time  went 
on,  various  original  townships  adjacent  to  the  Acrop- 
olis. Although  the  name  of  king  and  some  relics  of 
royal  authority  survived  in  the  person  of  the  King 
Archon,  yet,  unlike  the  relation  of  Sparta  to  Laconia 
or  Thebes  to  Boeotia,  Athens  was  not  a  mere  royal 
centre  for  the  Attic  demesmen.  All  Attica  was  Athens. 


ATHENS,  TO  BATTLE  OF  SALAMIS  6i 

All  its  free  inhabitants,  class  by  class,  became  included 
in  the  citizenship,  albeit  the  republic  was  an  aristocracy, 
first  of  birth,  then  of  wealth.  Solon's  readjustment 
of  the  laws  for  rich  and  poor  determined  the  trend 
towards  government  by  the  people,  and  even  the  in- 
evitable tyranny,  postponed  by  Solon,  only  served, 
when  it  came,  to  retard  the  current  and  to  dam  up  a 
reservoir  of  irresistible  democratic  consciousness  which 
was  to  sweep  away  the  tyrants  and  to  render  the  Attica 
of  Marathon  inaccessible  to  the  returning  despot. 

The  picture  of  the  old  city  of  Theseus  is  vague  to 
our  imagination,  but  the  Athens  of  Solon's  administra- 
tion emerges  somewhat  more  clearly  as  we  tp.ke  away, 
one  after  another,  some  of  the  prominent  features  of 
the  later  Athens  that  we  know  best.  The  Acropolis 
lacked  the  Propylsea,  the  Parthenon,  and  the  Erech- 
theum,  its  barrenness  being  relieved  by  little  save  the 
"  old  "  temple  of  Athena  Polias.  Not  only  the  Dionysiac 
theatre,  but  even  its  earliest  forerunner  were  things 
of  the  future.  The  drama  was  yet  unborn.  The  Mar- 
ket-place of  later  centuries,  adorned  with  statues  and 
stoas,  was  represented  by  a  simpler  centre  of  civic  life 
at  the  west  end  of  the  Acropolis,  where  were  the  public 
buildings  of  administration,  the  communal  winepress 
of  the  Lenaeum  and  the  old  Callirrhoe  spring. 

Yet  Solon  calls  Athens  a  great  city,  and  he  was  to 
make  it  still  greater.  Into  that  early  Market-place  he 
came  and,  if  we  accept  the  picturesque  details  handed 
down  by  tradition,  feigning  madness  in  order  to  vie- 


62     GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

late  with  impunity  the  law  forbidding  citizens  to  re- 
open the  question  of  conquering  Salamis,  he  cried:  — 

Forward  to  Salamis,  forward,  to  fight  for  the  isle  that  we  yearn  for. 
Thrusting  dishonour  aside,  casting  off  grievous  disgrace. 

The  Athenians  were  aroused.  They  went  with  him 
across  the  narrow  strait,  and  Salamis,  the  "lovely 
island,"  thenceforward  was  their  own,  destined  to  serve 
them  as  refuge  in  their  hour  of  greatest  need.  Solon 
used  his  popularity,  thus  acquired,  in  no  self-seeking 
way.  Chosen  archon  and  virtual  dictator  he  moulded 
proletariat  and  noble  to  his  own  noble  will.  Again  and 
again  his  verse  reenforces  his  pedestrian  arguments. 
"The  black  earth  is  enslaved,"  he  says,  and  presently 
the  mortgage  stones,  dotted  over  the  farms,  are  mere 
cancelled  records.  Many  such,  of  a  later  date,  have 
been  found.  The " Penurious  Man"  in  Theophrastus 
"  inspects  his  boundary  stones  daily  to  make  sure  that 
they  are  in  place."  Solon  proudly  appeals  to  the  con- 
stituency of  the  future  to  justify  his  laws :  — 

Be  witness  unto  this  before  the  bar  of  time, 

Thou  greatest  Mother  of  the  gods  Olympian  — 

Aye  witness  best  —  black  Earth,  whose  mortgage  border-stones 

Fixed  here  and  there  on  every  side,  I  took  away. 

And  she  who  erst  .was  slave  is  set  at  liberty. 

Again,  even  more  proudly,  he  says:  — 

I  set  myself  as  border  stone  inscribed  betwixt 
Contending  factions. 

The  citizens,  he  says,  by  their  folly  and  their  greed 
would  themselves  destroy  the  city,  but  Athena,  the 
Watcher,  is  there  upon  the  hill:  — 


ATHENS,  TO  BATTLE  OF  SALAMIS  63 

Never  by  Zeus's  decree  nor  by  will  of  the  blessed  immortals 
Ruin  shall  come  to  our  town,  causing  our  city, to  fall. 

Never,  while  yonder  that  great-hearted  Guardian,  sired  majestic, 
Pallas  Athena  above  stretches  her  sheltering  hands. 

In  the  Athenian  memory  as  well  as  in  these  vigorous 
elegiacs  he  embedded  the  epithet  of  "Guardian"  (ctti- 
o-KOTTos)  that  would  in  after  days  lend  significance  to  the 
great  bronze  statue,  overlooking  the  city  and  sea,  and 
would  remain  after  Macedon  had  come  and  gone 
as  a  semi-official  title  of  the  goddess. 

Legend  tells  us  that  Solon  in  his  old  age,  when  the 
tyranny  had  now  come,  piled  his  armour  in  front  of 
his  house  door  —  probably  near  the  Market-place  of 
Pisistratus  —  and  turned  from  politics  to  a  serene  en- 
joyment of  the  pleasures  of  ear  and  eye  and  intellect  to 
which  he  had,  indeed,  never  been  a  stranger.  His  life 
had  always  been  consistent  with  his  own  epigram:  — 

And  still  as  I  age,  learning  many  a  lesson. 

Like  many  of  his  countrymen  subsequently,  he  com- 
bined active  participation  in  public  affairs  with  the 
character  of  poet  and  writer.  In  literature,  as  in  poHti- 
cal  life,  he  had  his  preferences.  Perhaps  nothing  more 
distinctly  places  him  in  the  old  Athens  than  his  disap- 
probation of  the  Tragedy  that  was  born  in  his  later 
years.  He  is  said  to  have  taken  Thespis  to  task  for 
the  falsehood  of  the  drama.  On  the  other  hand  the 
direct  sincerity  of  lyric  poetry  accorded  with  his  manner 
of  thought.  From  Elian's  variegated  patch-work  the 
story  drifts  down  to  us  that  to  Solon,  seated  one  day 


64    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

over  his  wine,  his  nephew  sang  one  of  Sappho's  songs. 
Solon  at  once  commanded  the  boy  to  teach  him  the 
song,  and  when  a  bystander  asked  why  he  was  so  eager, 
herepUed:  "When  I  have  learned  it,  then  that  I  may 
die!" 

To  subsequent  generations  he  seemed  the  embodi- 
ment of  wisdom  over  against  excess,  and  readers  of 
Herodotus  who  were  not  troubled  by  the  chronological 
difficulties  must  have  especially  enjoyed  the  story  of 
his  interview  with  Croesus  and  his  reproof  of  the  rich 
king  for  his  exultation  in  his  wealth.  The  famous  apo- 
thegm, "  One  must  wait  for  the  end  before  praising," 
was  repeated  in  one  form  or  another  by  Simonides, 
iEschylus,  and  Sophocles.  Of  Solon's  own  end  a  dra- 
matic story  is  mentioned  by  Plutarch,  although  he  re- 
fuses to  lend  it  his  credence:  "That  his  ashes,  after  his 
body  was  burned,  were  scattered  about  the  island  of 
Salamis  is  a  story  absolutely  mythical  and  incredible  by 
reason  of  its  outlandishness.  It  stands  recorded,  how- 
ever, both  by  other  noteworthy  men  and  by  Aristotle 
the  philosopher." 

After  years  of  varying  fortune  Pisistratus  finally 
(540  or  539  B.  c.)  established  himself  as  Tyrant  of 
Athens.  But  tyranny  at  Athens  was  never  more  than 
an  episode.  The  inbred  spirit  of  freedom  must  be 
reckoned  with.  Pisistratus  respected  popular  rights, 
and  after  the  accession  of  his  sons  the  suspicion  of  a 
tendency  to  introduce  such  measures  as  were  acqui- 
esced in,  for  example,  at  Corinth,  brought  death  to 


ATHENS,  TO  BATTLE  OF  SALAMIS  65 

the  one  and  subsequent  banishment  to  the  other.  But 
the  result  of  the  tyranny  of  Pisistratus  was  beneficent. 
Under  him  and  his  sons  the  city  began  to  take  on  both 
externally  and  intellectually  more  of  the  characteris- 
tics which  are  in  mind  when  we  think  of  Athens. 
Architect,  sculptor,  and  painter  began  to  contribute 
enriching  details  to  the  Acropolis,  including  the  first 
Propylaea.  Engineers  skilfully  brought  water  from 
near  and  far  into  the  old  Market-place,  and  in  front 
of  the  town  spring  of  Callirrhoe  Pisistratus  built 
the  spacious  ''Nine  Spouts" — the  Enneakrounos  — 
where  women  filled  their  water-jars  and  stayed  to 
gossip.  The  newer  market-place,  to  the  north  of  the 
Areopagus,  was  developed.  A  great  Olympieum  was 
begun  on  the  site  of  the  present  columns,  which  date 
from,  perhaps,  174  B.  c.  Gymnasium  life  became  impor- 
tant and  the  Academy  was  made  ready  as  if  in  antici- 
pation of  its  great  future.  Doubtless  within  this  lovely 
grove  many  a  youth  of  the  period  might  have  served 
as  a  model  for  Aristophanes's  fifth-century  picture  of 
palaestra  life  in  the  good  old  times :  — 

"But  you  will  go  enter  as  Academe  sprinter  and  under  the  olives  con- 
tend 

With  your  chaplet  of  reed,  in  a  contest  of  speed  with  some  excel- 
lent rival  and  friend: 

All  fragrant  with  yew  and  leisure  time  too,  and  the  leaf  which  the 
white  poplars  fling 

When  the  plane  whispers  love  to  the  elm  in  the  grove  in  the  beauti- 
ful season  of  spring."  * 

*  Clouds,  992,  translated  (except  first  line)  by  Rogers. 


66    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

A  distinctive  part  of  Pisistratus's  policy' was  the 
encouragement  of  country  life  and  of  agriculture. 
AH  over  the  Attic  plain  the  olive  orchards  were  culti- 
vated, to  become  an  important  source  of  revenue  to 
the  Athenian  state  and  immeasurably  to  enhance  the 
charm  of  its  environment.  Herodotus  recounts  that 
a  tall,  handsome  woman  named  Phye,  from  the  hill 
country,  had  impersonated  Athena  come  down  in 
mortal  guise  and,  riding  in  a  chariot  with  Pisistratus, 
had  lent  divine  sanction  to  his  original  coup  d'etat. 
The  Attic  demesmen  might  still  more  easily  accept 
this  new  measure  as  a  command  transmitted  from 
Athena  who  had  herself  first  created  the  olive  tree 
and  taught  its  culture  on  the  Acropolis :  — 

A  heaven-sent  grey-gleaming  crown  for  her  Athens, 
Her  city  of  light. 

Aristotle,  in  his  "  Constitution  of  Athens,"  lays  great 
stress  on  the  effort  of  Pisistratus  to  develop  the  pros- 
perity of  the  farmers.  He  tells  how  Pisistratus,  walking 
in  the  country  and  seeing  one  digging  among  the  rocks, 
asked  what  sort  of  a  crop  grew  there,  and  the  man, 
unaware  that  it  was  the  Tyrant,  replied:  " Such  a  crop 
of  evils  and  pain  that  it  were  right  that  Pisistratus 
should  have  his  tithe  of  them."  Pisistratus,  pleased 
both  with  his  industry  and  his  free  speech,  relieved 
the  farmer  of  his  burdens.  And  so,  Aristotle  continues, 
he  was  not  troubled  during  his  reign  but  could  secure 
peace  and  quiet  and  **the  word  was  often  on  the  lips 
of  many  that  the  tyranny  of  Pisistratus  was  a  regular 
life  under  Kronos,"  or  Golden  Age. 


ATHENS,  TO  BATTLE  OF  SALAMIS  67 

Pisistratus  did  much  toward  securing  for  Athens 
the  intellectual  hegemony  of  Greece.  Whatever  the 
Panathenaea,  inherited  from  Theseus  (or  even  from 
Erich thonius),  may  have  been  previously,  the  Greater 
Panathenaic  festival  was  now  solemnized  every  four 
years  with  more  magnificence  and  became  at  Athens 
the  necessary  and  dignified  offset  to  the  quadrennial 
games  at  Olympia  and  Delphi.  Games,  sacrifices,  and 
amusements  of  varied  character  were  added  from  time 
to  time.  Horse,  chariot,  torch,  and  foot  races  were  in- 
cluded. Visitors  came  from  abroad.  But  neither  local 
nor  intercantonal  athletics  gave  the  keynote.  Rhap- 
sodists  recited  Homer,  and  flute,  cithara,  and  song 
were  heard.  Everything  tended  to  focus  itself  upon  the 
worship  of  Athena,  who  was  the  Athenian  conscious- 
ness glorified  and  made  objective. 

Under  Pisistratus  or  his  sons  (or,  less  probably, 
under  Solon)  Homer  was  recalled  from  Ionia  and  domi- 
ciled on  the  mainland.  Whatever  may  be  the  details 
about  a  formal  recension  and  publication  at  this  time, 
recitations  from  Homer  were  made  an  integral  part  of 
the  public  festivals,  and  Athens  became  the  clearing- 
house for  an  intellectual  currency  good  throughout 
all  Hellas.  The  name  "Pan- Athenian,"  passing  even 
beyond  Pan-Ionian,  was  to  be  equated  with  a  culture 
that  was  Pan- Hellenic.  This  befitted  the  epic  breadth 
transcending  mere  local  traditions.  "The  Iliad  was 
not  composed  for  any  king  or  tyrant.  If  it  is  aristocratic, 
its  appeal  is  not  to  any  given  set  of  noble  families,  but 


68    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

to  all  brave  men  of  Greek  legend."  And  the  spirit 
in  which  this  epic  trust  was  administered  tallies  well 
with  the  restraint  of  Pisistratus  in  respecting,  as  far 
as  possible,  the  laws  of  Solon.  If  there  were  Attic  inter- 
polations in  the  poems,  they  do  not  glorify  his  house. 
In  the  "Catalogue  of  the  Ships"  the  Athenians  re- 
ceived honourable  but  not  excessive  mention.  The 
brief  reference  to  the  ships  from  Salamis,  as  ranged 
under  the  command  of  the  Athenians,  would  seem  to 
suggest  the  recent  conquest  of  the  island  under  Solon 
or  even  the  suspicion  that  Solon  had  himself  interpo- 
lated it  beforehand  as  proof  of  the  ancient  suzerainty 
of  Athens :  — 

Twelve  ships  from  Salamis  Aias  commanded.  He 
brought  them  and  placed  them  there  where  Athenian 
squadrons  were  marshalled. 

But  perhaps  the  easiest  solution  of  all  questions  in  re- 
gard to  interpolations  in  the  Homeric  poems  is  to  pin 
our  uncritical  faith  to  the  authenticity  of  Lucian's  in- 
terview with  Homer  in  Elysium :  "  I  went  up  to  Homer 
the  poet,  when  we  were  both  at  leisure,  and  after  mak- 
ing other  inquiries  ...  I  asked  him  further  about  the 
rejected  verses,  whether  they  were  written  by  him. 
And  he  declared  that  he  wrote  them  all! " 

The  greatest  and  most  characteristically  Attic  con- 
tribution of  the  sixth  century  was  the  fostering  of  the 
drama,  in  connection  with  the  worship  of  Dionysus. 
This  Thracian  divinity,  on  his  journey  southwards, 


ATHENS,  TO  BATTLE  OF  SALAMIS  69 

had  been  welcomed  in  the  villages  of  Attica,  where 
vineyard  and  winepress  awaited  his  blessing.  The 
Pisistratidae,  who  have  been  called  "the  providential 
defenders  of  the  faith  of  Dionysus"  against  the  aristo- 
cratic disdain  felt  for  a  peasant's  god,  invited  him  to  a 
new  temple  in  the  Lenaea  —  the  Marshes  —  below  the 
Acropolis,  where,  at  the  time  of  the  winter  solstice, 
the  Feast  of  the  Winepress  once  more  identified  the 
capital  with  the  country  it  had  outgrown.  But  Pisis- 
tratus  went  further  in  establishing  the  City  Dionysia, 
a  spring  festival  destined  to  a  long  life  and  splendid 
renown.  Instead  of  private  performances  at  rural 
feasts,  the  drama  now  became  part  of  the  official  admin- 
istration of  the  city.  The  first  dated  performance  of  a 
play  by  Thespis  was  in  534  b.  c.  This  may  have  been 
on  the  occasion  bf  the  opening  of  the  "orchestra,'* 
north  of  the  Areopagus,  near  the  new  Market-place, 
where  the  spectators  henceforth  found  seats  on  wooden 
scaffolding  until  the  tnore  permanent  theatre  was 
erected  south  of  the  Acropolis.  Athens  was  now  ready 
for  the  great  dramatists.  The  wine-god  looms  up  as  a 
rival  to  Athena,  as  may  be  seen  by  his  ubiquity  on  the 
vase  paintings  and  his  dominant  presence  in  the  Attic 
calendar.  "In  the  actual  religious  ritual  Dionysus 
became  of  more  importance  at  Athens  than  Zeus, 
Apollo,  or  even  Athena." 

Thus  in  diverse  ways  does  Pisistratus  present  a  fair 
claim  for  having  made  Athens  greater,  in  steady  pro- 
gression from  the  wise  policies  of  Solon.   Solon  him- 


70    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

self  must  often  have  feared  an  excess  of  luxury  and 
splendour.  No  one  of  his  generation  could  have 
dreamed  of  a  regretful  modern  desire  to  have  seen, 
because  of  its  charming  simplicity,  ''the  little  earlier 
Athens  of  Pisistratus."  But  many  a  Periclean  Greek 
may  have  forestalled  it.  Aristophanes  was  forever  seek- 
ing for  a  revival  of  — 

"the  precepts  which  taught 
The  heroes  of  old  to  be  hardy  and  bold,  and  the  men  who  at  Mara- 
thon fought!"* 

These  were  the  precepts  which  taught  ^Eschylus.  We 
are  apt  to  think  of  him  only  in  his  maturity,  a  fighter 
at  Marathon,  a  seasoned  warrior  at  Salamis,  a  poet  of 
the  post-Persian  epoch.  But  his  childhood  fell  in  the 
time  of  the  Pisistratidae,  and  it  is  by  no  means  idle  to 
speculate  on  the  influences  which  then  encompassed 
him.  The  memory  of  Solon's  ethics  and  vocabulary 
he  carried  with  him  through  life.  Foreign  poets  also, 
attracted  to  Athens  by  the  sons  of  Pisistratus,  must  have 
seemed  to  him  important  personages.  Two  of  the  "  ten" 
lyric  poets  were  at  this  time  identified  with  the  city. 
Anacreon,  when  Polycrates,  the  tyrant  of  Samos,  had 
no  longer  a  home  to  offer  him,  was  brought  in  triumph 
to  Athens  in  a  fifty-oared  galley  sent  by  Hipparchus. 
And  Simonides  of  Ceos,  who  was  to  be  the  chief  mouth- 
piece of  liberated  Greece,  was  well  content  to  enjoy  the 
patronage  of  the  despot. 

iEschylus  was  fifteen  when  Hippias  was  expelled. 
Hipparchus  had  been  assassinated  earlier,  at  one  of 

*  Clouds,  973,  translated  by,  Rogers. 


ATHENS,  TO  BATTLE  OF  SALAMIS  71 

the  celebrations  of  the  Panathenaea,  by  Harmodius 
and  Aristogeiton,  but  their  failure  to  dispose  of  both 
tyrants  at  one  blow  had  caused  them  to  be  igno- 
miniously  put  to  death  and  their  memory  ignored. 
Now,  in  the  new  enthusiasm  for  freedom,  they  were 
hailed  as  liberators  of  their  city.  Their  memory  be- 
came a  cult.  Their  statues  were  set  up  by  the  Agora, 
and  the  boy  iEschylus,  as  each  anniversary  of  their  deed 
came  around  and  the  Panathenaic  procession  wound  up 
to  the  Acropolis,  must  have  been  fired  by  the  thought 
of  them.  At  twenty-five  he  may  have  lustily  joined 
in  the  new  drinking  song  which,  commemorating  their 
deed,  took  the  town  by  storm.  It  continued  to  be  sung 
for  centuries.  To  Aristophanes  it  was  a  hackneyed 
classic  and  part  of  his  comic  stock  in  trade. 

"In  a  wreath  of  myrtle  I'll  wear  my  glaive, 
Like  Harmodius  and  Aristogeiton  brave, 
When  the  twain  on  Athena's  day 
Did  the  tyrant  Hipparchus  slay. 

*'  For  aye  shall  your  fame  in  the  land  be  told, 
Harmodius  and  Aristogeiton  bold. 
Who,  striking  the  tyrant  down, 
Made  Athens  a  freeman's  town."  * 

With  the  victory  at  Marathon  Athens  came  of  age. 
The  struggle  between  Orientalism  and  Hellenism  was 
just  begun.  Salamis  and  Plataea  and  Eurymedon  were 
yet  to  be.  But  the  Greeks  with  a  divine  improvidence 
discounted  their  ultimate  success.   Their  twenty  years 

*  Callistratus,  translated  by  Conington.  For  the  complete  song 
see  Symonds,  "  Greek  Poets,"  chap.  x. 


72    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

of  democratic  education  made  impossible  any  com- 
promise with  despotism.  Whatever  necessary  vague- 
ness may  still  have  existed  at  Athens  in  the  attempted 
fusion  of  polytheistic  tradition  with  the  awakening  con- 
ception of  monotheism,  there  now  stands  forth  in  a 
law-abiding  conscience  the  barrier  of  Law,  clear  and 
bold  as  the  outHne  of  Pentelicus  above  Marathon. 
The  contemporary  Athenian  feeling  is  reflected  by 
^schylus  in  the  answer  of  the  old  Persian  men  to 
Darius's  widowed  queen,  who  has  asked  about  the 
Greeks :  — 

ATOSSA 

And  who's  their  herdsman?  Who  the  people's  overlord? 

CHORUS 

There's  no  man's  name  they  bear  as  slaves  and  underlings. 

At  this  time  another  country  god  was  naturalized 
at  Athens,  a  friend  and  comrade  of  Dionysus  in  secret, 
mountain  places,  but  not  intruding  upon  him  in  the 
formalities  of  city  worship.  Pan  had  helped  the  Athe- 
nians at  Marathon  and  had  stopped  the  swift  courier 
Pheidippides,  sent  to  hurry  reenforcements  from  Sparta, 
and  bidden  him  ask  his  people  "why  they  made  no 
account  of  him,  although  he  had  been  useful  to  them 
many  times  already  and  would  be  again."  The  Athe- 
nians at  once  ''dedicated  a  sanctuary  to  Pan  under  the 
brow  of  the  Acropolis  and  in  consequence  of  this  mes- 
sage they  propitiated  him  by  yearly  sacrifices  and  a 
torch  race."  His  cave  at  the  northwest  end  of  the 
Acropolis  still  exists  to  convince  the  sceptic.  He  lived 
on  here,  overlooking  the  Areopagus  and  Agora,  to 


ATHENS,  TO  BATTLE  OF  SALAMIS  73 

dome  forth,  "horned,  panpipe  in  hand,  with  his  shaggy 
legs,"  and  greet  the  lady  Justice  sent  by  Zeus  to  in- 
vestigate the  charlatan  philosophers  of  Athens  in  Lu- 
cian's  day.  Pan  gives  Justice  a  fluent  account  of  their 
frailties  and  is  about  to  add  certain  details,  when  her 
sense  of  propriety  cuts  him  short.  "If  I  must,"  says 
he,  "tell  the  truth  in  full,  without  holding  anything 
back  —  for  I  live,  as  you  see,  where  I  can  take  a 
bird's-eye  view  —  many  's  the  time  I  've  seen  scores  of 
them,  well  along  towards  evening — "  (Justice)  "Stop 
there.  Pan!" 

While  Pan  was  accumulating  details  of  the  "Private 
Life  of  the  Athenians,"  as  they  passed  and  repassed 
before  his  grotto,  the  public  energy  of  the  city  was  trans- 
muted into  enduring  memorials  above  him  on  the  calm 
heights  of  the  Acropolis. 


CHAPTER   IV 
THE    ACROPOLIS    OF    ATHENS 

All  this  pursuit  of  the  arts  has  this  function,  even  a  recall  of  the 
noblest  in  the  soul  to  a  vision  of  the  most  excellent  in  the  ideal. 

Plato,  Republic. 

TO  speak  of  the  Acropolis  of  Athens  with  due 
Hellenic  restraint  is  difficult  for  any  one  who 
has  lived  long  under  its  habitual  sway.  At 
the  first  visit  three  sets  of  impressions  break  down  the 
most  obdurate  impassiveness.  The  associations  ac- 
quired by  a  study  of  history  engender  a  vicarious  but 
active  sympathy  with  the  Greeks  themselves.  There 
is  an  immediate  impact  of  beauty  from  marble  gate- 
way and  temples  and  sculpture  which  the  proces- 
sion of  years  has  only  incorporated  more  intimately 
with  the  beauty  of  sea  and  land  and  circumambient  air. 
And,  finally,  there  is  the  involuntary  sense  of  coming 
back  to  one's  own  —  to  an  intellectual  birthright. 
Even  the  Turkish  conquerors  did  not  fail  to  recognize 
that  all  western  civilizations  consider  the  Acropolis  an 
integral  part  of  their  joint  heritage.  Dr.  Howe  quotes 
from  an  intercepted  letter  of  Kiutahi  Pashaw,  the  op- 
ponent of  the  Greek  patriot,  Karaiskakis,  in  1826: 
*'The  citadel  of  Athens,  as  is  known  to  you,  was  built 
of  old  on  a  high  and  inaccessible  rock;  not  to  be  injured 


THE  ACROPOLIS   OF   ATHENS  75 

by  a  mine  nor  accessible  to  assault.  .  .  .  From  it  went 
out  of  yore  many  famous  philosophers ;  it  has  many 
works  of  art  very  old,  which  make  the  learned  men  of 
Europe  wonder ;  and  for  this  reason  all  the  Europeans 
and  the  other  nations  of  unbelievers  regard  the  citadel 
as  their  own  house." 

The  attitude  of  the  ancient  Greeks  toward  the  Acro- 
polis is  only  casually  expressed  in  their  extant  litera- 
ture. No  Greek  Victor  Hugo  has  given  to  men  distant 
in  place  and  time  as  vivid  a  picture  of  the  Parthenon  as 
we  possess  of  Notre  Dame.  In  trying  to  imagine  what 
the  Greeks  saw,  as  they  came  up  to  their  citadel,  we 
must  first  ^differentiate  between  'the  main  historical 
epochs.  Of  the  Acropolis  in  the  earliest  age  we  can  form 
a  partial  conception.  The  impressive  remains  of  poly- 
gonal masonry  still  extant,  in  the  massive  citadel  walls; 
the  traces  of  the  old  "Kings'  City"  around  the  Erech- 
theum,  and  even  within  the  groundplan  of  the  old 
Athena  temple;  the  remains  of  the  ancient  stairway, 
northeast  of  the  Erechtheum,  leading  to  the  postern 
gate  —  all  fit  in  with  and  fill  out  a  reconstruction  based 
on  our  conception  of  other  ancient  strongholds,  like 
Mycenae  or  Tiryns. 

When  we  think  of  the  citadel  in  the  age  of  Pisistratus 
and  the  time  previous  to  the  Persian  Wars  we  are  fairly 
sure  of  the  main  characteristics.  We  can  picture  the 
old  Athena  temple,  simple  yet  dignified,  in  the  middle 
of  the  plateau,  adorned  with  coloured  sculptures  (some 
of  which  may  be  seen  in  the  Museum  to-day),  sacred 


76    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

shrines,  precincts  and  altars  with  a  wealth  of  dedi- 
catory offerings,  and  also  the  older  Propylaea  let  in  be- 
tween the  massive  "Pelasgic"  walls  and' approached 
by  a  way  that  wound  down  through  a  complex  of  out- 
works to  meet  the  old  Agora. 

This  Acropolis,  far  simpler  than  the  Periclean  citadel 
but  beautiful  and  adorned,  was  devastated  by  the  Per- 
sians. Then  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  after 
Salamis  we  must  imagine  it  as  scarred  and  patched, 
with  perhaps  only  one  temple,  half  restored,  to  house 
the  sacred  image  within  its  blackened  walls. 

In  general,  when  we  speak  of  the  Acropolis,  it  is  of 
the  citadel  as  it  appeared  towards  the  close  of  the  fifth 
century  to  Sophocles  and  Euripides  and  Aristophanes, 
to  Thucydides  and  Xenophon,  to  Isocrates  and  Lysias, 
to  Socrates  and  Plato.  This  citadel  we  can  restore  to 
our  imagination  from  the  descriptions  of  Pausanias 
(controlled  by  information  from  other  sources)  who,  in 
spite  of  erratic  omissions,  fortunately  describes  many 
things  with  a  fulness  of  detail  quite  foreign  to  the  writ- 
ers of  the  classical  period. 

When  Socrates,  too  robust  at  seventy  to  know  the 
fatigue  of  the  ascent,  climbed  the  approach  to  the  hill 
he  must  often  have  been  inspired  by  the  beauty  of  art, 
as  he  had  been  by  the  beauty  of  nature  on  the  banks 
of  the  IHssus,  to  renew  the  prayer:  " Dear  Pan,  and  ye 
other  gods,  make  me  beautiful  in  the  inward  man." 
Born  into  a  generation  and  among  a  people  where  ex- 
ternal and  physical  beauty  was  assumed  as  corollary 


THE   ACROPOLIS   OF  ATHENS  77 

to  the  beauty  of  the  ideal,  there  escapes  him,  thus  in- 
cidentally, the  echo  of  his  self-conquest  over  his  own 
Silenus-like  exterior,  so  out  of  keeping  with  the  charm 
of  his  environment.  Perhaps  he  went  up  the  hill  the 
evening  before  his  trial  to  take  a  last  look  at  what  he 
had  loved  long  and  well.  He  knew  in  advance  that  his 
"apology"  to  the  court  was  to  be  a  reassertion  of  indi- 
vidual liberty  of  conscience  that  would  most  probably 
result  for  him  in  the  hemlock  draught.  The  majestic 
columns  of  the  great  gateways  rose  before  him  on  either 
side,  the  wings  extended  like  welcoming  arms.  He 
would  turn  to  the  left  and  stand  in  the  picture  gallery. 
Perhaps  he  would  pause  longest  before  Alcibiades,  his 
pernicious  disciple,  pictured  in  arrogant  beauty  as 
victor  at  the  Nemean  games.  Turning  to  the  other  side 
of  the  gateway,  he  would  stand  on  the  bastion  before 
the  Nike  temple  and  would  look  out  over  the  familiar 
city,  the  Attic  plain  and  harbour-town.  As  he  passed 
on  now  to  enter  the  gateway,  and  his  eye  fell  upon  the 
sculptured  Hermes  and  the  Graces,  little  would  he 
dream  of  the  perplexed  debate  of  modern  critics  as  to 
a  possible  connection  of  this  group  with  the  handiwork 
of  a  young  sculptor  or  stone-cutter,  "Socrates  the  son 
of  Sophroniscus." 

Under  or  just  within  the  Propylaea  he  would  note 
various  familiar  objects,  and  when  he  had  passed 
through  he  would  see  before  him  to  the  right  and  left 
the  Parthenon  and  the  Erechtheum.  The  intervening 
space  would  not  be  as  it  is  now  a  floe  of  marble  blocks. 


78    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Two  orderly  avenues  of  votive  offerings  traversed  the 
plateau  before  him.  Against  a  column  of  the  Propyl^a 
still  stands  an  inscribed  basis  of  a  statue  dedicated  to 
Athena,  the  Giver  of  Health,  set  up  by  Pericles  in  grati- 
tude for  the  recovery  of  one  of  his  injured  workmen, 
one  perhaps  whose  skill  he  could  ill  spare  in  the  com- 
pletion of  his  large  designs.  Close  by,  a  marble  boy, 
made  by  a  son  or  disciple  of  the  great  Myron,  held  out 
a  bowl  of  holy  water  as  at  the  entrance  of  a  cathedral. 
Socrates,  whose  reverence  exceeded  that  of  all  his  ac- 
cusers, would  not  scorn  this  symbol  of  purification, 
least  of  all  when  about  to  journey  away,  as  he  ex- 
pressed it,  from  Athens  to  another  life.  Before  him  tow- 
ered up  the  bronze  Athena,  the  warrior  goddess,  whose 
gleaming  helmet  could  be  seen  by  homeward  voyagers 
as  soon  as  they  had  passed, the  intercepting  shoulder 
and  foot-hills  of  Hymettus.  Near  by  was  the  Lemnian 
Athena,  goddess  of  the  arts  of  peace,  held  by  the  Greeks 
themselves  as  more  beautiful  even  than  the  great  gold- 
ivory  statue  within  the  Parthenon.  The  three  em- 
bodied the  conceptions  of  Phidias,  as  in  a  trilogy. 
Near  by  was  a  portrait-herm  of  Pericles  himself.  There, 
too,  was  the  "wooden  horse,"  a  colossal  bronze,  with 
the  Greeks  (not  forgetting  the  sons  of  Theseus)  peeping 
out  from  its  side.  And  when,  passing  along  this  Pan- 
athenaic  road,  lined  with  statues  and  votive  offerings, 
he  had  threaded  his  way  around  to  the  east  front  of 
the  Parthenon,  he  would  enter  between  the  columns, 
and  in  the  cool  twilight,  lit  by  the  gleam  of  gold  and 


THE  ACROPOLIS   OF  ATHENS  79 

ivory,  he  would  look  up  to  the  Victory  on  the  extended 
hand  of  Athena.  Perhaps  for  a  moment  the  goddess 
may  have  lifted  the  veil  of  the  future  to  reveal  that  the 
defeat  of  the  morrow  would  be  a  victory  of  far  greater 
import  than  even  that  of  Marathon  or  Salamis. 

To-day  the  visitor,  as  he  goes  up  to  the  Acropolis, 
carries  with  him  the  accumulated  associations  of  cen- 
turies. On  the  bastion  of  the  Temple  of  Victory,  un- 
surpassed in  its  miniature  charm,  he  watches  with 
JEgeus  for  Theseus  returning  in  triumph  from  slaying 
the  Minotaur.  At  the  sight  of  the  black  sail,  left  un- 
furled by  inadvertence,  the  old  king  plunged  from 
the  rock  to  his  death,  ^geus  and  the  other  kings 
passed  away  and  other  men  from  this  rock  watched 
fleets  hostile  and  friendly  come  and  go  in  yonder  bay 
and  enemies  scour  the  surrounding  plain  of  Attica. 
Byron,  finally,  brooded  here  over  a  renascent  Hellas. 

If  any  work  of  man's  hands  can  purge  the  mind  of 
the  commonplace,  it  is  the  Propylasa,  imposing  in  its 
grand  proportions,  yet  enticing  by  its  beauty.  Through 
this  the  pilgrim  now  passes  and  is  alone  with  Greek 
life.  Although  the  plateau  is  deserted,  the  temple  in 
ruins,  there  is  no  sense  of  death.  There  is  rather  a  sud- 
den sense  of  Beauty  set  free  from  the  trammels  of  daily 
life.  The  fortunate  isolation  of  the  hilltop  contributes 
to  this  effect.  Byzantine  makeshifts,  Turkish  hovels 
and  minarets,  have  all  been  swept  away  —  even  the 
intruding  Roman  is  left  outside  with  the  disfiguring 
pedestal  of  Agrippa's  statue.   The  foreground  of  the 


8o    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

modern  city  is  sunk  out  of  sight  behind  the  rim  of  the 
plateau.  There  is  to  be  seen  on  all  sides  only  the  same 
Attic  plain,  the  same  ^Egean  sea,  and  the  same  hori- 
zon of  mountains,  which  the  eyes  of  kings  and  demo- 
crats, artists,  orators  and  philosophers  have  looked 
upon  in  days  gone  by. 

In  this  harmony  of  surroundings,  the  eye  and  thought 
rest  undisturbed  upon  the  Parthenon.  The  tributes  of 
the  centuries  have  probably  left  the  visitor  unprepared 
for  his  own  emotion.  Like  a  wind  on  the  mountain, 
felling  the  strong  oak  trees,  the  heavenly  Eros,  Plato's 
Love  of  Beauty,  descends  upon  him.  Bayard  Tay- 
lor's first  impressions,  in  spite  of  an  enthusiasm  per- 
missible fifty  years  ago  but  now  well-nigh  out  of  print, 
are  worth  recalling  for  the  sake  of  a  figure  evoked  by 
the  appalling  ruin  of  beauty.  Beyond  a  sea  "of  hewn 
and  sculptured  marble,  drums  of  pillars,  pedestals, 
capitals,  cornices,  friezes,  triglyphs  and  sunken  panel- 
work,"  he  saw  the  Parthenon  against  the  sky,  and  it 
seemed  to  him  as  if  it  lay  ''broken  down  to  the  earth 
in  the  middle  like  a  ship  which  has  struck  and  parted, 
with  the  roof,  cornices  and  friezes  mostly  gone  and 
not  a  single  column  unmutilated,  and  yet  with  the  tawny 
gold  of  two  thousand  years  staining  its  once  spotless 
marble,  sparkling  with  snow-white  marks  of  shot  and 
shell,  and  with  its  soaring  pillars  embedded  in  the  dark 
blue  ether." 

But  since  Morosini's  sacrilegious  bomb  did  its  work 
the  generations  have  refused  to  accept  as  the  ultimate 


THE  ACROPOLIS   OF  ATHENS         8i 

fact  the  shipwreck  of  this  temple  in  which  culminated 
the  plastic  arts  of  ancient  Greece  and  in  which  were 
typified  her  loftiest  ideas.  Poet  and  philosopher  have 
sat  before  it  in  fruitful  meditation,  and  commoners 
have  paced  its  great  colonnades,  unregardful  of  the 
ways  and  marts  of  men  amid  the  austere  majesty  and 
royal  repose  of  the  Doric  pillars. 

From  the  imperious  beauty  of  the  Parthenon  the 
eye  turns  gratefully  to  the  lovely  Erechtheum.  Al- 
though this  is  but  a  torso  of  the  architect's  design 
and  its  complex  structure  defies  preconceived  conven- 
tions, its  Ionic  charm  satisfies  in  each  detail.  The 
eastern  columns,  the  Porch  of  the  Maidens,  the  ex- 
quisite tracery  of  the  doorway  set  within  the  perfectly 
proportioned  northern  porch  present  a  series  rather 
than  a  unity  of  graceful  designs. 

The  other  remnants  —  fragmentary  and  broken  — 
of  the  vanished  Hfe  upon  this  hill  must  be  identified 
with  pious  care.  Then  the  thought  turns  to  such  refer- 
ences in  literature  as  have  been  transmitted  to  us. 
These  also  are  fragmentary,  seeniing  sometimes  like 
the  patches  of  blue  and  red  and  gold  not  yet  wholly 
effaced  from  the  marbles. 

The  Iliad,  as  we  know  it,  preserves  an  Athenian 
tradition  of  the  prehistoric  kingly  Acropolis.  Among 
the  warriors  bound  for  Troy  are  listed:  — 

They  that  had  Athens,  the  citadel  goodly,  the  holding 
of  great-heart  Erechtheus  to  whom  on  a  time,  as  foster- 
ing nurse,  was  Zeus's  daughter,  Athena  (though  the  seed- 


82    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

land,  giver  of  grain,  was  the  mother  who  bore  him),  and  at 
Athens  she  made  him  to  dwell,  in  her  own  habitation  of 
plenty.  There  the  Athenian  youths  with  bulls  atid  with 
rams  do  him  honour,  year  after  year  in  the  seasons  re- 
turning. 

And  here  under  the  Greek  heaven,  on  this  hill  left 
lonely  by  men  but  easily  accessible  to  gods,  it  would 
hardly  seem  incredible  if  Athena  herself  were  suddenly 
to  appear  once  more.  In  the  Odyssey,  when  she  had 
ventured  to  leave  Odysseus  to  his  own  cunning  among 
thfe  Phaeacians,  she  returned  by  a  course,  strangely 
devious  for  an  air  line,  by  way  of  Marathon  to  Athens : — 

Then  with  these  words  the  bright-eyed  Athena  departed 
over  the  harvestless  seas  and  behind  her  left  Scheria  lovely. 
She  came  unto  Marathon  then  and  the  wide-wayed  Athe- 
nian city,  and  entered  the  massive-built  house  of  Erech- 
theus. 

As  we  look  upon  the  meagre  traces  of  the  prehis- 
toric city,  we  should  like  to  see  the  princess  maidens 
appear  in  the  simplicity  of  the  kingly  times.  Like  the 
women  described  by  Pherecrates,  the  comic  poet,  they 
had  no  slaves:  — 

No  one  then  possessed  a  Sambo,  no  one  had  a  maid-slave  then, 
Every  bit  of  household  labour  must  the  girls  themselves  perform. 

Herodotus  tells  us  how  they  used  to  go  down  and  out 
from  the  protecting  gateways,  to  draw  water  at  Callir- 
rhoe  beyond  the  Agora,  and  how  the  rough  Pelasgians, 
banished  from  this  their  ancient  home,  would  now  and 
again  rush  down  from  Hymettus  to  carry  them  off. 


THE  ACROPOLIS   OF  ATHENS         83 

The  old  Erechtheus  worship,  the  snake,  the  ancient 
image  of  Athena,  and  the  aUied  precincts,  lost  none  of 
their  sanctity  as  time  went  on.  From  Herodotus  we 
learn  that  Themistocles  was  materially  aided  before 
Salamis,  in  persuading  the  Athenians  to  abandon  the 
city,  by  the  sudden  disappearance  of  the  sacred  snake. 
"  The  Athenians,"  he  gravely  reports,  ''say  that  a  large 
snake  dwells  in  the  sacred  precinct  as  guardian  of  the 
Acropolis.  And  they  not  only  say  this  but  they  make 
offerings  to  him  month  by  month,  setting  them  out  for 
him  as  actually  there.  These  consist  of  a  honey-cake. 
Now  this  honey-cake,  although  heretofore  it  had  al- 
ways been  consumed,  remained  at  this  time  untasted, 
so  the  Athenians,  when  the  priestess  reported  the  fact, 
made  the  more  eager  haste  to  leave  the  city,  on  the 
ground  that  the  goddess  had  abandoned  her  citadel." 
The  sacred  olive  tree,  however,  which  Xerxes  had 
burned  with  the  rest  of  the  precinct,  put  forth  the  very 
next  day  a  new  shoot  one  cubit  long.  By  the  time  of 
Pausanias  the  guide  said  "two"  cubits.  But  the  es- 
sential point  is  the  continued  care  of  the  goddess,  and 
as  for  the  snake,  he  soon  resumed  his  dwelling  on  the 
AcropoHs.  In  the  "Lysistrata"  of  Aristophanes,  the 
women  who  have  seized  and  barricaded  the  Acropolis 
make  excuses  for  leaving,  complaining  that  they  can- 
not sleep,  one  on  account  of  the  hooting  of  Athena^s 
owls,  another  by  reason  of  her  terror :  — 

Since  I  clapped  eyes  upon  the  snake  that  dwelleth  there. 

When  in  the   "Eumenides"  oi^Eschylus  the  scene 


84    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

shifts  from  Delphi  to  the  Acropolis,  we  find  Orestes 
seated  as  suppliant  before  Athena's  most  ancient  image. 
This  we  may  think  of,  in  default  of  any  other  temple 
then  existing,  as  placed  in  the  old  Hecatompedon,  whose 
foundations  are  seen  adjoining  the  Erechtheum  on  the 
south.  This  temple,  burned  by  the  Persians,  but  par- 
tially restored,  may  have  been  in  use  even  after  the 
Parthenon  was  dedicated  in  438  b.  c,  twenty  years  after 
this  play  was  brought  out,  and  perhaps  until  the  com- 
pletion many  years  later  of  the  Athena  Polias  chamber 
in  the  Erechtheum.  An  Athenian  could  not  well  con- 
ceive of  his  cit^  as  safe  without  this  ancient  statue ;  even 
the  birds  in  their  new  Cloud-cUckoo-town  must  needs 
debate  whether  they  shall  not  keep  Athena  Polias  as 
their  protector. 

No  Roman  Catholic  ever  accepted  more  loyally  the  es- 
tablished glory  of  St.  Peter's  and  the  Vatican  than  the 
Athenians  accepted  their  citadel.  The  new  gateways 
were  spoken  of  with  undisguised  pride.  A  comic 
poet,  Phoenicides  of  neighbouring  Megara,  when  ridi- 
culing Athens,  incidentally  admits  that  the  Athenians 
cared  as  much  for  their  Propylaea  as  their  palates.  He 
says: — 

Of  myrtle  berries  and  their  honey,  too,  they  talk, 
And  praise  their  Propylaea.   Last,  not  least,  dried  figs. 
I  sailed  and  forthwith  had  a  taste  of  all  of  these. 
Including  Propylaea!   Not  one  single  thing 
Upon  this  bill  of  fare  could  ever  match  our  grouse! 

In  one  of  the  anonymous  fragments,  those  riderless 
Pegasi  of  Greek  literature,  another  comic  poet  com- 


THE   ACROPOLIS    OF   ATHENS  85 

bines  the  Piraeus  and  the  Parthenon  in  an  outburst  of 
civic  pride.  Nor  does  he  forget  the  olive  groves  and 
radiant  air :  — 

Mistress  of  all,  Queen  City  of  Athenians, 
How  fair  thy  docks,  how  fair  to  view  thy  Parthenon! 
And  thy  Piraeus,  too,  is  fair.   And  then  again 
What  other  city  ever  yet  had  groves  like  thine  ? 
And,  as  they  say,  the  very  sky,  thy  sky,  is  fair. 

And  Demosthenes,  not  deterred  by  any  shrinking 
from  hackneyed  allusion,  refers  expressly  to  the  Pro- 
pylaea  and  the  Parthenon,  when  he  speaks  of  "those 
things  upon  which  we  all  naturally  pride  ourselves.-" 
Aristophanes,  seeking  to  recall  his  fellow-citizens  to 
the  ideals  of  Marathon  days,  shows  us  in  his  "  Knights  " 
the  Propylasa  and  the  freshly  boiled-over  and  rejuve- 
nated Demos,  —  the  avatar  of  true  Democracy,  — 
seated  within  the  unclosing  doors  of  the  gateway, 
dressed  in  the  brilliant  garb  of  a  gentleman  of  the  good 
old  Marathon  type :  "  Just  such  as  he  used  to  be  when 
he  messed  with  Aristides  and  Miltiades,"  his  hair 
caught  up  with  the  golden  cicada  pin,  emblem  of  Attic 
autochthony. 

In  the  "  Lysistrata"  the  Athenian  men,  ignorant  that 
at  a  future  day  their  Parliament  was  to  be  controlled 
by  suffragettes,  feel  that  the  limit  of  the  legitimate 
boycott  is  over-passed  when  the  women  seize  and  bar- 
ricade their  Acropolis.   The  old  chorus  leader  says :  — 

In  life's  long  stretch  of  time,  are  many  things  unlooked 
for  —  Woe  is  me !    For  who  had  ever  thought  to  hear  that 


86    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

women  whom  we  keep  (a  mischief  manifest)  should  get 
Athena's  sacred  image  in  their  hands;  should  seize  my 
citadel;  the  Propylaea  barricade  with  bolts  and  bars? 

In  this  play,  too,  we  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  more  inti- 
mate interweaving  of  an  Athenian  maiden's  life  with 
the  Acropolis  ritual.  One  of  this  same  sans-culotte  gar- 
rison looks  about  her  and  reviews  her  girlhood;  how 
she  had  been  selected  among  the  best- born  girls  to 
carry  the  mysterious  burden  in  the  Arrephoria,  had 
ground  the  meal  for  the  sacred  cakes  for  Athena  Arche- 
getis;  had  impersonated  a  bear  in  the  worship  of  Arte- 
mis; and,  finally,  had  gained  the  coveted  privilege  of 
being  basket-bearer  in  the  Panathenaic  procession. 
Explaining  her  personal  gratitude  to  the  city,  the 
woman  says :  — 

When  seven  years  old  an  Arrephoros  I; 

And  when  I  was  ten 
I  ground  the  meal  for  our  Lady-on-High ; 

In  my  next  role  then 
I  figured  as  Bear  in  Brauronian  show, 

And  the  saffron  wore; 
Then  as  full-grown  maid  —  quite  pretty  you  know  — 

The  Basket  I  bore. 

The  barren  precinct  of  Artemis  Brauronia  adjoins 
the  south  corner  of  the  Propylaea,  and  a  small  dedica- 
tory bear,  found  somewhere  near,  now  sits  in  the  Acro- 
polis Museum,  brooding  in  stony  silence  over  by-gone 
glories  at  the  Brauronia.  But  the  maiden  with  the 
saffron  robe  and  all  her  girl  companions  have  long  since 
disappeared  "down  the  back  entry  of  time." 


THE  ACROPOLIS   OF  ATHENS  87 

If  it  could  be  granted  us  to  have  restored  one  portion 
of  the  Parthenon  or  its  appurtenances,  our  choice  would 
probably  fall,  not  upon  the  famous  gold- ivory  statue 
of  Athena,  but  first  upon  the  pediment  sculptures ;  next, 
it  may  be,  upon  the  great  continuous  frieze.  If  its  shat- 
tered fragments  could  be  restored,  and  the  slabs  now 
in  Paris  and  London  could  be  recalled  from  exile  and 
united  to  those  still  in  place,  it  would  be  an  easier  task 
for  the  imagination  to  reconstruct  from  these  than  from 
the  piecemeal  references  in  the  literature  an  abridged 
idealization  of  the  glory  of  the  actual  Panathenaic  pro- 
cession. As  it  is,  from  what  is  left  still  in  place  there 
emerges  something  far  more  significant  than  the  details 
of  any  cult  or  festival.  The  dismounted  youth  adjust- 
ing his  sandal ;  the  horse  with  leisurely  nose  bent  to  his 
fore-leg;  the  mounted  horsemen;  the  rams  and  oxen 
led  to  the  sacrifice,  remain,  like  Keats's  "heifer  lowing 
at  the  skies,"  to  tell  the  hurrying  generations  that  once, 
at  least,  there  has  existed,  and  may  exist  again,  wherever 
men  are  strong  to  feel  and  know,  the  harmony  between 
the  temporal  and  the  eternal. 

The  Parthenon  remained  practically  intact  for  cen- 
turies, lending  its  inspiration  both  to  the  creative  Greeks 
and  to  the  imagination  of  the  Romans,  the  executors 
of  the  Hellenic  realty.  Even  the  chryselephantine 
Athena  seems  to  have  held  undisturbed  possession  of 
her  temple  for  more  than  eight  centuries,  from  the 
dedication  in  438  b.  c.  to  about  430  a.  d.,  when  it  dis- 
appears from  Athenian  records. 


88    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Plutarch,  a  Greek  gentleman  of  the  first  Christian 
century,  speaks  with  enthusiasm  of  the  creations  of 
Pericles.  "There  blooms  upon  them  a  certain  fresh- 
ness untouched  by  time,  as  if  there  dwelt  within  them 
an  ever- animating  spirit,  a  life  that  never  grows  old." 
In  the  next  century,  under  the  successors  of  Hadrian, 
who  had  inaugurated  a  new  era  for  Athens,  Pausanias, 
a  foreigner,  came  and  saw  and  was  conquered  by  the 
wealth  of  detail  on  the  Acropolis.  At  the  same  time, 
that  generous  citizen  from  Marathon,  Herodes  Atticus, 
was  building  against  the  side  of  the  Acropolis  his 
gorgeous  Italian  opera-house,  while  Lucian,  the  Syrian 
Atticist,  with  a  higher,  if  impossible,  ideal,  was  striving 
to  revive  the  old  Platonic  grace  by  quarrying  from  the 
Pentelicus  of  classic  literature.  When,  in  the  r61e  of  a 
*' Truthful  James,"  he  is  acquitted  of  blasphemy  against 
true  philosophy,  he  enters  the  east  door  of  the  Parthenon 
to  make  thanksgiving  to  the  goddess,  or,  more  specifi- 
cally, to  the  winged  Victory,  six  feet  high,  upon  her 
hand.  His  devotion  takes  the  form  of  the  prayer  ap- 
pended to  three  of  Euripides's  dramas :  — 

O  majestical  Victory,  shelter  my  life 

Neath  thy  covert  of  wings. 

Aye,  cease  not  to  grant  me  thy  crowning. 

Thus,  like  many  another  later  foreigner,  he  pays  the 
time-honoured  tribute  to  the  outward  embodiment  of 
the  ideal. 

The  charm  of  the  AcropoHs  changes  with  the  chang- 
ing light.  See  it,  if  you  will,  at  dawn  from  the  opposite 


THE   ACROPOLIS   OF   AtHENS  89 

hillside,  near  the  **  Prison  of  Socrates,"  as  the  sun 
rises  over  Hymettus  and  the  Pentelic  columns  of  the 
Parthenon  change  from  the  gray  of  unsympathetic  sil- 
houettes to  the  luminous  chromes  of  the  irradiated 
marbles.  See  it  at  a  later  hour  and  wonder  that  it  does 
not  fade  into  the  light  of  common  day.  Or  visit  it  when 
the  sunset  light  turns  to  burnished  copper  the  un- 
adorned hills  in  the  west,  beyond  Salamis,  and  on  the 
choir  of  the  encircling  mountains  the  supramundane 
charm  of  the  violet  atmosphere  falls  like  a  robe  with 
empurpling  shadows  in  its  folds.  Go  when  the  night 
has  fallen,  and  sit  in  the  mysterious  darkness,  lit  only 
by  the  marble  columns  white  against  the  dark  outlines 
of  Hymettus,  until  the  full  moon  looks  over  the  moun- 
tain's rim,  tipping  architrave  and  capital  with  silver, 
and  then,  as  it  swings  free  from  Hymettus,  merging 
the  wreck  of  the  Parthenon  in  the  beauty  of  the  land- 
scape to  which  the  scarred  and  yawning  sides  of  the 
temple  seem  to  open  with  intent.  Presently  the  whole 
hill- top  with  its  moraine  of  prostrate  columns  and 
marble  fragments  is  lit  up  and  the  pillars  of  the  Propy- 
laea  flower  into  whiteness.  Or  finally,  bizarre  as  it  may 
sound,  see  it  when  —  artificially  illuminated  after  the 
Olympic  Games  —  the  ruined  temple  and  the  serrated 
contour  of  the  plateau  are  etched  in  mid-air  by  the 
white  light  against  a  gulf  of  darkness,  a  veritable  city 
of  the  skies.  . 

The  Acropolis,  crowned  with  perfect  art,  crowded 
with  the  loftier  phantoms  of  our  elder  kin,  is  a  light- 


90    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

house  for  all  time.  Liberty  and  Law  are  its  keepers. 
"Knowledge  comes  but  Wisdom  lingers,"  and  this 
citadel  is  to  every  thoughtful  man  in  some  sense  a  sym- 
bol of  his  goal.  Its  stately  Propylaea  welcomes  all.  No 
sincere  pilgrim  of  Truth  is  an  alien  in  the  long  Pan- 
cosmic  procession  of  statesman  and  scientist,  inventor 
and  poet,  artisan  and  artist  that  winds  up  the  steep 
ascent  to  lay  an  ever  freshly  woven  peplus  at  the  feet 
of  Wisdom. 


CHAPTER  V 

ATHENS:     FROM     THE     BATTLE    OF    SALAMIS    TO 
MENANDER 

Know  that  our  city  has  the  greatest  name  amongst  all  men 
because  she  never  yields  to  her  misfortunes.  And  even  should  we 
ever  be  compelled  to  yield  a  little  —  for  it  is  nature's  way  that  all 
things  bloom  to  suffer  loss  —  there  will  abide  a  memory  that  we 
made  our  dwelling-place  to  be  a  city  dowered  with  all  things,  and 
the  mightiest  of  all. 

Thucydides,  Oration  of  Pericles  in  the  Assembly. 

AFTER  the  battles  of  Salamis  and  Plat?ea  the 
Athenians  brought  back  their  families  to 
Attica.  Athens  was  a  scene  of  desolation :  the 
walls  destroyed,  the  dweUing-houses  ruined  heaps,  the 
sanctuaries  burnt,  the  statues  and  other  dedicatory 
offerings  broken  or  carried  off  by  the  Persians.  But 
the  invaders  had  not  carried  off  Athena  Nike,  ^schy- 
lus  puts  his  own  triumphant  feeling  into  the  mouth  of 
the  Persian  messenger  who  brings  the  news  of  the  de- 
feat of  Xerxes  to  Queen  Atossa :  — 

(messenger) 
The  city  of  the  goddess  Pallas  gods  preserve. 

(queen) 
What  say 'st?  The  city?  Athens?  Is  it  still  unsacked ? 

(messenger) 
Yes,  in  its  living  men  its  bulwark  stands  secure. 

Euripides,  also,  reechoes  this  word  of  ^Eschylus  and 
denies  the  sack  of  Athens.   As  a  matter  of  fact  little 


92    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

remained  Save  a  few  houses  used  as  Persian  head- 
quarters. But  the  blackened  walls  of  the  old  temple  on 
the  Acropolis  still  stood  in  grim  protest  against  the  vio- 
lation of  the  Virgin's  home  and  as  an  appeal  to  the  citi- 
zens to  provide  her  with  a  fairer  abode.  The  appeal 
was  not  disregarded.  In  the  fifth  century  the  city  was 
extended  and  the  Acropolis  was  adorned  with  monu- 
ments of  sculpture  and  architecture.  The  gods  and  the 
public  needs  came  first.  Private  dwellings  in  the  fifth 
century  were  not  imposing.  The  old  Marathon  fight- 
ers and  their  immediate  descendants  were  content  with 
private  simplicity.  In  the  fourth  century,  however, 
private  luxury  came  uppermost.  Demosthenes  con- 
trasts the  unequalled  splendour  of  the  temples,  statues 
and  public  buildings  of  the  old  time  with  the  modera- 
tion in  private  life,  which,  he  says,  was  so  marked 
"  that  if  any  of  you  perchance  knows  what  sort  of  a 
house  was  the  dwelling  of  Aristides  or  Miltiades  or  any 
of  those  then  eminent,  he  sees  that  it  was  no  whit  more 
stately  than  those  next  door  —  while  to-day  upstarts 
have  built  themselves  private  houses  more  stately  than 
the  public  buildings." 

Systematically  to  discuss  the  fifth  and  fourth  century 
references  to  specific  sites  —  buildings  public  and  pri- 
vate, stoas,  temples,  theatres,  gymnasia,  music-halls, 
courtrooms,  sanctuaries  and  statues,  walls  and  gates, 
the  place  of  the  Assembly,  the  market-place  and  the 
markets,  fountains,  streets,  and  wards  —  would  require 
several  volumes.  And  although  it  is  possible  to  present 


ATHENS   AFTER   SALAMIS  93 

by  inference  a  reasonably  clear  picture  of  the  environ- 
ment and  daily  life  of  the  citizens,  yet  the  exact  identi- 
fication of  the  majority  of  the  sites  in  the  remains  exist- 
ing to-day  is  either  impossible  or  a  matter  of  conjecture. 
Apart  from  the  Acropolis  buildings  but  few  conspicu- 
ous ruins  or  memorials  of  these  two  great  centuries 
are  left  for  actual  inspection.  The  continuous  occupa- 
tion of  Athens  by  successive  generations  of  changing 
masters  has  obliterated  or  buried  (perhaps  for  future 
identification)  the  greater  part  of  the  city  that  lay 
around  the  base  of  the  Acropolis.  It  is  only  surprising 
that  so  much  remains.  It  is  not  meagre  except  in  com- 
parison with  what  has  disappeared. 

Around  or  over  all  that  is  left  of  Classic,  Hellenistic, 
or  Roman  Athens  is  the  modern  city,  effacing  itself  in 
patches  at  the  behest  of  the  archaeologist,  or  developing 
slowly  in  accordance  with  its  own  needs. 

In  this  chapter,  however,  we  have  to  do  directly  only 
with  the  Athens  of  the  fifth  or  fourth  centuries.  If  the 
physical  remains  from  this  period  are  fragmentary,  the 
literature,  although  itself  but  fragments  of  the  whole, 
is  the  great  bulk  of  existing  classic  Greek  literature 
outside  of  the  epic,  the  earlier  philosophers,  and  the 
lyric.  And  this  corpus  of  literature  was  in  large  part 
native  Attic.  At  the  same  time  the  talent  from  with- 
out gravitated  also  to  Athens.  Herodotus  from  the  Do- 
rian Halicarnassus  not  only  wrote  in  Ionic,  but  adopted 
the  Athenian  attitude  so  largely  as  to  vitiate  in  part 
his  value  as  an  independent  historian.    Hippocrates, 


94    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

the  great  Ionian  physician,  visited  Athens.  The  Soph- 
ists, though  coming  from  the  North,  the  West,  or  the 
islands,  found  in  Athens  the  appropriate  environment 
for  a  ''circuit"  faculty  of  an  unarticulated  federal  uni- 
versity. Prose,  seasoned  and  adorned,  became  hence- 
forth an  asset  of  the  Athenian  intellect  and  was  made 
ready  for  the  use  of  historian,  orator,  and  philosopher. 
Athens,  mistress  of  the  seas,  and  herself  producer  of 
art  and  literature,  needed  no  protective  tariff  against 
intellectual  imports. 

This  very  wealth  of  fifth  and  fourth  century  litera- 
ture imposes  limitations,  more  rigid  than  our  uncer- 
tainty about  this,  that,  or  the  other  site,  upon  the  effort 
to  interpret  the  external  Athens  from  the  more  endur- 
ing monuments  of  her  thinkers.  Nor  is  it  true  that  the 
nexus  between  Athens  and  her  literature  may  be  made 
clear  only  by  definite  localization.  We  do  not  wish  the 
conditions  reversed.  Although,  for  example,  the  court- 
rooms and  the  Lyceum  have  disappeared,  we  may,  as 
we  wander  about  Athens  to-day,  come  much  nearer  the 
Greeks  of  the  classic  age  than  if,  while  the  buildings 
had  remained  intact,  the  words  of  the  orators  and  of 
the  great  Peripatetic  could  no  longer  reach  our  ears. 
The  so-called  "Theseum,"  largely  perfect  as  it  is  and 
invaluable  for  architectural  and  artistic  suggestion, 
leaves  us  cold  in  the  lack  of  literary  association  as  com- 
pared with  the  Propylaea  where  many  an  old-time 
Athenian  rubs  elbows  with  us  as  we  pass  in  and  out 
between  its  stately  columns.   But  in  a  wider  sense  we 


COLONNADE   OF   THE   "THESEUM 


ATHENS  AFTER  SALAMIS  95 

may  "localize/'  here  on  this  Attic  plain  around  the 
Acropolis  and  here  under  this  Attic  sky,  the  poetry  and 
prose  of  the  fifth  and  fourth  centuries. 

A  brief  summary  of  this  poetry  and  prose  will  per- 
haps suggest  more  clearly  the  larger  pattern  from 
which,  almost  arbitrarily,  selections  may  be  made. 

In  the  fifth  century,  lyric  was  brought  to  its  perfec- 
tion by  singers  not  of  Athens.  But  Ceos,  the  birthplace 
of  two  of  them,  was  moored  close  to  Attica.  Simonides, 
the  poet-laureate  of  the  Persian  wars,  was  much  in 
Athens,  and  his  nephew  Bacchylides  took  the  Attic 
Theseus  for  the  theme  of  two  of  his  extant  poems, 
wrote  one  of  his  epinician  odes  in  honour  of  an  Athen- 
ian victor,  and  composed  another  poem  expressly  in 
laudation  of  Athens.  Pindar  himself  studied  in  Athens, 
and  afterwards,  to  his  own  townspeople's  disgust, 
praised  her  in  no  grudging  terms.  The  Athenian  drama 
itself,  in  the  chorals  of  tragedy  and  of  Aristophanes, 
contributed  much  of  the  greatest  lyric  extant  in  Greek 
literature. 

Tragedy  in  the  fifth  century  grew  from  infancy  to 
maturity  at  Athens.  When  iEschylus,  Sophocles,  and 
Euripides  had  completed  their  work  it  had  received  its 
final  form  for  the  Greeks,  and  was  so  transmitted  to  the 
great  actors  and  the  lesser  playwrights  of  the  fourth 
century. 

Comedy  likewise  culminated  with  Aristophanes  in 
the  fifth  century.  More  flexible  than  tragedy,  however, 
it  could  humour  successfully  the  changing  moods  of 


96     GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

the  body  politic  and  retain  its  vigour  through  the  whole 
of  the  fourth  century.  Even  under  Macedon,  Menan- 
der  in  the  New  Comedy  could  recast  much  that  Euripi- 
des had  tried,  with  varying  success,  to  embody  within 
the  canonized  limits  of  orthodox  tragedy. 

History  was  the  gift  of  the  fifth  century.  Herodotus 
after  the  Persian  wars  bridged  with  his  epic  prose  the 
^gean,  and  we  reach  terra  firma  in  Thucydides's  his- 
tory in  the  latter  part  of  the  century.  In  the  first  part 
of  the  fourth  century  we  have  Xenophon,  the  historian, 
biographer,  essay- writer,  and  historical  novelist.  These 
were  precursors  of  a  line  of  historians  appearing  spo- 
radically even  down  through  Byzantine  times. 

Oratory,  an  inalienable  inheritance  of  the  Hellene 
even  before  Athena  coached  the  crafty  Odysseus,  re- 
ceived at  Athens  a  certain  finality  of  form,  or  forms, 
that  has  imposed  its  influence  upon  the  occidental, 
whether  Roman  or  Englishman,  lawyer  or  epideictic 
speaker.  The  unwritten  word  of  statesmen  Uke  Peri- 
cles, fusing  the  persuasion  of  the  politician  with  the 
keener  rationaUsm  of  Anaxagoras  and  the  raucous, 
but  not  wholly  unpatriotic,  opportunism  of  dema- 
gogues like  Cleon  or  Hyperbolus,  was  paired  with  the 
more  decently  draped  pragmatism  of  the  Sophists,  and 
resulted  in  the  selected  group  of  the  "ten"  orators,  of 
the  fifth  and  fourth  centuries.  There  was  the  some- 
what archaic  Antiphon,  the  dignified  criminal  lawyer; 
Andocides,  who  brought  his  rough  and  ready  style  to 
bear  upon  burning  questions  of  contemporary  politics; 


ATHENS   AFTER  SALAMIS  97 

Lysias,  the  son  of  an  alien,  but  truly  Attic,  the  younger 
friend  of  Socrates,  the  lucid  narrator,  the  relentless 
prosecutor;  Isaeus,  the  capable  testamentary  barrister; 
Isocrates,  who  both  saw  the  building  of  the  Erechtheum 
and  outlived  the  battle  of  Chaeronea,  and  whose  over- 
finished  oratory  transmitted  the  florid  adornment  of 
Gorgias  to  the  schools  in  which  Cicero  was  trained ; 
Demosthenes,  greatest  of  all,  whether  in  private  suits 
or  in  his  arraignment  of  public  foes,  whose  terrorizing 
cleverness  was  quick  to  strike  or  counter  like  the  flash- 
ing arms  of  the  athlete  impeded  with  no  ounce  of  florid 
superfluity;  ^Eschines,  his  great  antagonist;  Lycurgus; 
Hyperides;  and  Dinarchus. 

Philosophy  as  a  native  Attic  product  matured  last 
of  all.  Ionia  had  produced  the  great  " physical"  philo- 
sophers, and  Pythagoras  had  gone  in  the  sixth  century 
to  Italy;  but  in  the  first  half  of  the  fifth  century  the  so- 
called  "colonial"  philosophers,  like  the  foreign  Soph- 
ists, influenced  Athenian  thought  —  some  of  them  by 
personal  visits.  They  came  from  the  East  and  from  the 
West.  Parmenides  came  from  Italy,  and  his  influence 
was  felt  by  Socrates  and  transmitted  to  Plato  and 
Aristotle.  The  aristocratic  Empedocles  came  on  a  visit 
from  Sicily.  Anaxagoras  from  Ionia  settled  at  Athens 
in  his  youth.  His  "chaos-controlling  mind"  —  the 
primal  force  of  reason  —  impregnated  the  statesman- 
ship of  Pericles  and  engendered  the  rationalism  of 
Euripides.  The  Athenians  might  banish  the  philoso- 
pher, but  his ''  primal  force  of  reason  "  was  already  busy 


g8    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

in  rearranging  the  chaos  of  traditional  beliefs.  It 
emerges  clearly  in  Plato  as  intelligent  Mind.  Socrates, 
though  not  himself  a  writer,  is  the  central  figure  of 
philosophic  literature.  Pre-Socratic  thought  focused 
in  him  as  in  a  burning-glass.  From  him  shoot  out  the 
divergent  rays  of  the  Academics  and  Peripatetics,  the 
Cynics  and  the  precursors  of  the  Epicureans,  Stoics, 
and  Skeptics.  No  one  of  his  disciples  reproduced  his 
views  with  any  exactness,  but  he  stimulated  self-exami- 
nation and  independent  thought.  Each  took  from  him 
what  he  could  or  would,  and  developed  differing  or 
mutually  exclusive  schools.  Like  the  rivers  of  Greece, 
coursing  for  a  time  through  the  underground  ''kata- 
vothras,"  pre-Socratic  speculative  thought  on  physics 
and  metaphysics  flowed  on  beneath  the  open  devotion 
of  Socrates  to  ethical  questions,  and  reappears  in  his 
successors. 

Plato  in  the  fourth  century  constituted  himself  the 
ethical  and  philosophic  executor  of  Socrates.  Loyalty 
and  a  wide  vision  alike  combined  to  perpetuate  his 
master's  name  in  the  intellectual  output  of  the  great 
Platonic  dialogues.  It  has  been  the  work  of  centuries  to 
disentangle  the  real  views  of  this  sleeping  partner  from 
those  of  Plato's  own  constructive  intellect,  which  built, 
pulled  down,  and  reared  anew  the  dwelling-places  for 
the  minds  of  many  men  in  many  generations. 

Aristotle,  like  Anaxagoras,  came  as  an  alien  and 
settled  in  Athens  in  his  youth.  After  the  death  of  his 
master,  Plato,  he  left  Athens,  travelled,  and  became  the 


ATHENS  AFTER  SALAMIS  99 

tutor  of  Alexander.  After  the  accession  of  his  royal 
pupil  to  the  throne,  he  established  at  Athens  in  the 
Lyceum  a  rival  school  to  the  Academy. 

Antisthenes,  half  Athenian,  half 'Thracian,  the  faith- 
ful follower  of  Socrates,  had  before  this  established  the 
Cynic  school  in  another  gymnasium,  the  Cynosarges, 
where  the  victors  fresh  from  Marathon  had  encamped. 
Socrates,  the  barefoot  friar,  the  new  avatar  of  Heracles, 
was  his  patron  saint.  Later  in  the  century  Zeno  the 
Stoic  set  up  his  eclectic  school  in  the  Painted  Porch 
of  the  Agora,  and  Epicurus,  of  an  Attic  father  though 
born  at  Samos,  established  his  school  in  his  own  Gar- 
dens near  the  Dipylon. 

Theophrastus,  the  friend  of  Epicurus  and  of  Menan- 
der,  gives  us  in  his  "  Characters, "  at  the  close  of  this 
period,  vivid  portraits  of  Athenian  life  which  supple- 
ment the  fragments  of  Menander  and  the  other  writ- 
ers of  the  New  Comedy,  and  also,  as  pupil  and  succes- 
sor of  Aristotle,  carried  on  his  master's  teachings  in  the 
Lyceum.  Thus  one  pupil  busied  himself  in  transmit- 
ting through  his  intellectual  heirs  the  esoteric  thought  of 
his  master,  while  Alexander,  another  pupil,  had  con- 
structed on  lines  that  paralleled  the  intellectual  imperi- 
alism of  his  teacher  a  material  organon  of  Empire  (ut- 
terly at  variance  with  his  master's  conception  of  the 
ideal  state)  that  no  successor  could  wield  alone  until 
Rome  reached  forth  and  grasped  it  in  her  iron  hand. 

But  to  understand  at  all  the  meaning  of  the  litera- 
ture, it  is  also  necessary  to  remind  ourselves  of  some  of 


too        GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

the  more  striking  features  of  the  history  of  these  two 
centuries.  They  are  crowded  with  conspicuous  figures 
and  with  events  significant  to  the  philosophic  student 
of  political  institutions. 

In  general  the  fifth  century  exhibits  the  rise  and 
downfall  of  the  imperialistic  policy,  the  fourth  century 
the  rehabilitation  of  a  chastened  democracy,  with  spo- 
radic echoes  of  a  federalizing  ideal.  But  no  one  policy 
can  be  predicated  of  the  fifth  century.  It  varied  with 
the  great  leaders,  Themistocles,  Cimon,  Pericles,  and 
others  —  the  old  in  conflict  with  the  new ;  conservative, 
aristocratic  democracy  against  imperialism ;  democracy 
against  oligarchy;  ochlocracy  against  democracy. 
When  the  Persian  peril  was  thrust  back,  the  irrepressi- 
ble conflict  between  Sparta  and  Athens  emerged.  The 
struggle  for  the  hegemony  between  them,  or  between 
varying  combinations  of  the  Greek  states,  was  to  con- 
tinue at  intervals  until  the  time  when  all  the  old  powers 
of  Greece  were  to  succumb  to  Macedon. 

Themistocles,  the  hero  of  Salamis,  was  ostracized 
from  Athens  within  eight  years  of  the  great  sea-fight, 
but  his  spirit  still  animated  his  countrymen,  and  his 
policies  were  afterwards  revived  or  expanded.  His 
rival  Aristides  guided  affairs  at  home,  and  Cimon,  the 
son  of  Miltiades,  sailed  with  the  conquering  Athenian 
navy.  His  victory  at  Eurymedon  in  468  b.  c.  made  it 
possible  to  fortify  Athens  and  Piraeus  and  to  merge  the 
Confederacy  of  Delos  in  the  Athenian  Empire.  In 
seven  years  more  Cimon  in  turn  was  ostracized,  but  at 


ATHENS  A^Tm  SA/aMlS, ,;  loi 

the  end  of  another  seven  years  the  rich  treasure  of 
Delos  could  be  transferred  to  Athens  and  the  empire 
formally  established.  It  was  to  last  until  the  disaster 
at  yEgospotami,  in  405  B.  C.  Pericles,  after  successfully 
competing  with  the  reactionary  patriotism  of  statesmen 
like  Thucydides,  obtained*,  at  the  ostracism  of  the  latter 
in  442  B.  c,  the  controlling  power  at  Athens,  which  he 
guided  by  his  regal  persuasion  for  the  next  fifteen  years. 
The  imperialism  of  Pericles  reahzed  the  policy  of 
Themistocles  on  the  seas,  reaped  the  harvest  of  the 
great  Cimon's  victories,  and  transmuted  the  treasure 
of  Delos  into*  the  sinews  of  war  and  the  monuments 
of  the  glorified  Acropolis.  He  reshaped  the  civic  life, 
even  curtailing  the  sacred  powers  of  the  Areopagus, 
and  by  popular  changes  in  the  complexion  of  Council, 
Assembly,  and  Law  Courts,  prepared  the  way  for  the 
uneven  rule  of  demagogues  after  his  own  strong  hand 
should  be  withdrawn.  He  had  great  odds  to  contend 
with.  After  the  renewal  of  the  Peloponnesian  wars  in 
431  B.  c,  with  the  succession  of  victories  and  reverses, 
the  Great  Plague  came  to  assert  an  unlooked-for  he- 
gemony. On  the  suffering  and  disasters  of  the  city  fol- 
lowed the  trial  and  condemnation  of  Pericles  himself. 
He  was  indeed  reinstated  as  indispensable,  but  his  death 
in  the  following  year  left  Athens  at  the  mercy  of  the 
demagogues  —  with  Alcibiades  to  follow.  The  Sicihan 
expedition,  the  crowning  venture  of  imperialism,  issued 
—  as  was  to  be  expected  with  no  real  successor  of  Peri- 
cles to  direct  it  —  in  the  disaster  of  413  b.  c,  when  the 


I02    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

brave  Syracusans,  with  the  willing  help  of  Sparta,  dis- 
sipated the  Athenian  dream  of  vast  colonial  expansion. 
The  next  ten  years  was  for  Athens  a  losing  struggle 
at  home  and  abroad.  The  short-lived  oligarchy  of  the 
Four  Hundred  in  411  b.  c,  the  strenuous  but  vain  ef- 
forts of  Theramenes  to  reconcile  oligarchy  and  democ- 
racy, the  civic  strife  and  war  with  the  powerful  Lysan- 
der,  the  crushing  defeat  at  ^Egospotami,  the  interven- 
tion of  Sparta,  the  brief  but  terrible  regime  of  the  Thirty 
Tyrants,  completed,  in  404  b.  c,  the  final  overthrow 
of  imperial  Athens.  But  Sparta,  with  politic  generosity, 
while  doing  away  with  the  empire,  left  Athens  free  to 
establish  a  more  stable  democracy  that  was  to  last 
through  the  greater  part  of  the  fourth  century.  Oli- 
garchy could  no  more  find  a  hearing,  and,  although 
Hellenic  federations  were  eloquently  advocated  by  the 
orators  and  actually  formed,  despotic  empire  was  no 
longer  feasible  for  the  Athenians.  Their  new  leader, 
Conon,  however,  the  foe  of  Sparta,  could  succeed  after 
Lysander's  death  in  making  Athens  independent  and 
strong.  We  come  upon  his  work  now  and  again  in 
Athens  and  in  Piraeus,  and  in  the  renascent  civic  life 
the  intellectual  life  went  on  with  new  vigour.  The  im- 
perial dream  finally  came  true,  but  from  the  outside. 
The  Macedonian,  though  sneered  at  as  barbarian  by  De- 
mosthenes, confirmed  at  the  Olympic  games  the  validity 
of  his  Hellenic  claim  that  he  had  asserted  at  Chaeronea. 
The  fitful  struggle  against  the  sway  of  Macedon  only 
resulted,  under  a  successor  less  philhellenic  than  Philip, 


ATHENS  AFTER  SALAMIS  103 

in  the  forced  suicide  of  the  great  Demosthenes  and  the 
execution  of  Hypereides,  whose  funeral  oration,  pro- 
nounced over  the  dead  heroes  of  the  "lost  cause,"  car- 
ries us  beyond  the  great  speech  of  Pericles  —  pro- 
nounced on  a  similar  but  less  hopeless  occasion  — 
back  to  the  heroes  of  Marathon  and  Salamis.  Speaking 
of  the  dead  leader  Leosthenes,  he  says:  "In  the  dark 
under-world  —  suffer  us  to  ask  —  who  are  they  that  will 
stretch  forth  a  right  hand  to  the  captain  of  our  dead  ? 
.  .  .  There,  I  deem,  will  be  Miltiades  and  Themisto- 
cles,  and  those  others  who  made  Hellas  free,  to  the 
credit  of  their  city,  to  the  glory  of  their  names."  * 

We  sit  to-day  beneath  a  Greek  sky  on  the  rising  tiers 
of  the  modem  centuries,  and  the  drama  of  Athenian 
life  is  reproduced  before  our  eyes.  The  greater  pro- 
tagonists of  literature  and  life  play  out  their  roles. 
Many  another  actor  plays  his  less  prominent  but  es- 
sential part.  The  "mutes"  contribute.  The  chorus 
of  democracy  is  seldom  absent  from  the  scene.  The 
binoculars  of  modern  historians  penetrate  behind  paint 
and  mask  and  robe,  and  the  squalor  of  the  real  actor 
is  at  times  laid  bare.  We  may  choose,  however,  to 
ignore  minutiae  and  to  give  ourselves  up  to  the  more 
satisfying  perspective  of  the  literature,  and  to  let  sweep 
before  us  the  bright  procession  of  form  and  colour,  the 
song  and  saga,  the  Dionysiac  revel  and  tragic  mimicry 
that  fill  out  the  real  drama  of  life. 

*  Translated  by  Jebb,  Attic  Orators. 


104   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

^schylus  connects  the  old  and  the  new  Athens.  Be- 
fore Marathon  he  produced  his  first  play ;  in  the  inter- 
val before  Salamis  he  gained  a  first  prize;  and  he 
brought  out  his  greatest  dramas  in  the  time  of  the 
Renascence,  of  which  he  was  a  great  part. 

The  bare  hill  of  the  Areopagus  claims  attention  as 
we  descend  from  the  Propylaea.  It  rises  as  a  physical 
barrier  between  the  deserted  site  of  the  old  city  of  The- 
seus and  that  of  Classic  or  of  Modern  Athens.  With  the 
sanctity  attaching  to  the  time-honoured  prerogatives  of 
its  venerable  court  it  was  also  a  moral  barrier  between 
the  old  and  the  new  in  the  days  when  Pericles  was 
reshaping  the  civic  Hfe.  And  ^Eschylus  in  his  "  Eumeni- 
des,"  the  third  play  of  his  great  trilogy,  strove  as  best 
he  could  to  reconcile  old  traditions  with  the  inevitable 
readjustment  to  the  life  of  imperial  Athens.  He  spoke 
with  the  authority  of  a  Hebrew  prophet.  Whatever  else 
was  changed,  blood-guiltiness  must  be  judged.  Only 
within  the  mysterious  gloom  of  the  cleft  beneath  the 
Areopagus  could  the  dread  and  ancient  Furies,  spawn 
of  Night,  be  transformed  into  wiUing  coadjutors  of  the 
goddess  of  Wisdom. 

The  Furies  in  hot  haste  have  pursued  from  Delphi 
Orestes,  the  mother- murderer.  Confidently  anticipat- 
ing the  verdict,  they  cry :  — 

Over  the  victim  thus  we  chaunt, 

A  frenzy  and  madness  his  mind  to  daunt, 

A  hymn  of  the  Furies  to  fetter  the  mind, 

Unset  to  the  lyre,  unconfined, 

A  withering  blight  to  human  kind. 


ATHENS  AFTER  SALAMIS  105 

The  god  Apollo  himself  appears  for  the  defendant,  and 
when  the  decision  goes  against  the  Furies  by  Athena's 
casting  vote  in  the  Areopagus  Court,  their  bitterness 
against  the  "new"  gods  shoots  forth  like  the  serpents 
uncoiling  in  their  hair :  — 

Ah  upstart  gods  and  parvenu! 

My  ancient  laws  your  hoof-beats  spurn. 

Ye  wrested  them  from  out  my  hand, 

Alas  for  you! 

I,  though  dishonoured  and  distressed, 

Upon  this  land 

The  grievous  weight  of  my  wrath  shall  turn 

And  from  my  breast 

Shoot  venom  on  venom,  woe  for  woe, 

Drop  upon  drop  of  a  poison  flow 

For  Earth  unbearable,  unblest. 

Athena  pacifies  the  Furies  by  promising  them  a  local 
sanctuary  and  the  reverence  of  the  citizens  for  all  time. 
The  old  order  is  reconciled  with  the  new,  and  the 
Furies,  now  the  Eumenides  —  the  Propitious  Ones  — 
are  escorted  to  their  dwelling  in  the  cleft  of  the  Are- 
opagus by  Athena's  own  attendants,  boys,  maidens, 
and  matrons,  with  ceremonious  honour  equal  to  the 
Panathenaic  procession :  — 

Fare  ye  on  to  your  home  in  your  emulous  might 
With  our  loyal  attendance,  ye  children  of  Night. 
(O  my  countrymen,  bless  them  and  praise  them!) 

In  the  caverns  of  eld,  in  the  womb  of  the  Earth 
With  the  offerings  of  honour  befitting  your  worth. 
(O  my  demesmen,  now  bless  them  and  praise  them!) 

Nay,  then,  righteous  and  gracious  in  mind  to  our  land. 
Come,  come,  O  ye  Dread  Ones,  take  joy  in  our  band. 
(Cry  aloud  now!   Exult  in  your  singing!) 


io6    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

As  the  torches  attend,  let  libations  be  poured, 
Thus  the  all-seeing  Zeus  and  the  Moeree  as  ward 
To  the  people  of  Pallas  their  presence  afford. 
(Cry  aloud  now!    Exult  in  your  singing!) 

The  great  mass  broken  off  from  the  east  end  of  the 
Areopagus  rock  has  partially  blocked  the  cleft  into 
which  the  chorus  conducts  home  the  Dread  Goddesses. 
As  the  procession,  chanting  its  hymn,  sweeps  around 
the  shoulder  of  the  hill,  the  faded  picture  of  ancient 
Athens  regains  its  outlines  as  if  under  some  powerful 
reagent.  Wine-press  and  fountain,  precincts  and  tem- 
ples, rise  again  from  their  ruins ;  the  throbbing  life  of 
the  eager  citizens  reappears.  But  the  gaily-dressed 
people  have  hushed  jest  and  carping  under  the  sense 
of  awe  evoked  by  yEschylus.  The  Athenians  were  then, 
as  St.  Paul  on  this  same  Areopagus  called  them  long 
afterwards,  "very  scrupulous,"  and  it  was  no  unworthy 
superstition  that  made  it  imperative  to  harmonize  the 
cruder  conceptions  of  the  immutable  laws  of  Retribu- 
tion with  the  new  and  expansive  wisdom  of  Athena. 
Swinburne,  with  keen  insight  into  the  universal  appli- 
cation of  the  great  drama,  brings  the  "shadows  of 
our  deeds"  under  wisdom's  searching  but  not  unkindly 
light:  — 

"  Light  whose  law  bids  home  those  childless  children  of  eternal  night, 
Soothed  and  reconciled  and  mastered  and  transmuted  in  men's  sight 
Who  behold  their  own  souls,  clothed  with  darkness  once,  now 
clothed  with  light." 

The  visitor  who  takes  his  stand  to-day  immediately 
in  front  of  the  south  side  of  the  Areopagus  is  com- 


ATHENS  AFTER  SALAMIS  107 

pletely  sequestered  from  the  modern  city.  Here  the 
Acropolis  and  the  Areopagus  rock  make  practically 
a  continuous  barrier  to  the  close-built  streets  that  on 
the  northern  side  come  crowding  up  their  slopes.  He 
is  encircled  with  hills,  and  this  ancient  quarter  of  the 
city  of  Theseus  lies  waste  and  silent  around  him.  The 
ground  is  harrowed  and  scarred  by  the  spade  of  the 
archaeologist.  Only  the  foundations  of  sanctuaries  and 
fountains,  houses  and  cisterns,  may  be  distinguished. 
The  rock-chambers  opposite,  called  by  courtesy 
the  "Prison  of  Socrates,"  will,  however,  recall  us  to 
classic  Athens.  While  waiting  for  the  return  of  the 
mission- ship  from  Delos  to  bring  the  day  of  execution, 
Crito  and  the  rest  listened  to  Socrates's  demonstrations 
of  immortality.  Plato  sent  his  reason  out  as  far  into 
the  invisible  as  reason  can  go.  In  the  ''Phaedo,"  after 
his  half-playful  periegesis  of  the  underworld,  Socrates 
is  made  to  say:  "Whosoever  seem  to  have  excelled  in 
holy  living,  these  are  they  who  are  set  free  and  released 
from  these  earthly  places  as  from  prisons  and  fare 
upward  to  that  pure  habitation  and  make  their  dwell- 
ing-place in  yonder  land.  .  .  .  Therefore  we  must  do 
our  utmost  to  gain  in  life  a  share  in  virtue  and  wisdom. 
For  the  prize  is  noble  and  the  hope  is  great!"  or,  as  he 
adds  presently,  "The  risk  is  fair."  And  Socrates,  Uke 
Pindar  before  him,  finds  the  crowning  joy  of  a  blessed 
immortality  neither  in  the  unlaborious  sunlit  life  by 
night  and  day,  nor  in  the  ocean  breezes,  nor  in  the 
flowers  of  gold  blooming  on  trees  of  splendour,  but  in 


io8    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

the  company  of  the  great  and  noble  dead  with  whom 
to  live  '"twere  more  of  happiness  than  tongue  can 
tell.'' 

On  the  Pnyx  hill  we  may  recall  the  Athenian  As- 
sembly, and  may  turn  in  fancy  the  voluminous  pages 
of  Congressional  Records  filled  with  patriotism  and 
jealousy;  we  Hsten  to  Pericles  and  his  persuasive 
schemes  for  imperial  expansion;  or  to  Socrates,  presi- 
dent for  the  day,  refusing,  amidst  the  clamours  of 
demos  and  demagogues,  to  put  to  vote  the  illegal  pro- 
position to  condemn  in  a  body  the  ten  generals ;  or  to 
Demosthenes  pleading,  denouncing,  planning  for  the 
welfare  of  the  city.  Or  in  the  half-light  before  dawn 
we  may  see  the  suffragettes  of  Aristophanes' s  "  Eccle- 
siazusse"  filing  up  the  hill.  More  wily  than  their  mod- 
ern sisters,  they  have  disguised  themselves  with  beards 
and  have  dressed  in  the  shoes  and  cloaks  distrained 
from  their  husbands,  imprisoned  at  home  by  naked 
necessity.  With  no  man  to  oppose,  the  women  quickly 
transfer  the  whole  control  of  the  State  to  themselves, 
and  institute  reforms  that  would  put  to  shame  the 
most  radical  of  modern  socialists.  A  slave,  in  the 
"Wasps"  of  Aristophanes,  once  had  a  dream  by  no 
means  respectful  to  the  Athenian  legislature.  Some 
sheep,  with  cloaks  and  staves,  sat  huddled  together  like 
just  so  many  Athenians  on  the  seats  of  the  Pnyx,  hold- 
ing an  Assembly.  To-day  the  hill  is  left  lonely,  and 
the  wandering  goats,  with  their  solemn  faces  and  long 
beards,  might  renew  the  sittings  unmolested. 


ATHENS  AFTER  SALAMIS  109 

In  the  face  of  the  hill  fronting  towards  the  Acro- 
polis, the  rock-chamber  of  the  Callirrhoe  spring,  with 
its  sloping  entrance  and  the  parapet  within,  has  been 
suggested  as  the  original  of  the  famous  cave  in  Plato's 
''Republic.''  The  Vari  Cave,  on  the  south  side  of 
Hymettus,  might  have  made  less  of  a  strain,  as  has  been 
urged,  upon  Plato's  imagination.  However  faint  the 
resemblance  of  the  Callirrhoe  cave  to  Plato's  complex 
setting,  it  is  enough  to  emphasize  the  vitality  of  this 
realistic  figure,  which  has  become  typical,  in  mod- 
ern poetry  and  prose,  of  the  denizens  of  earth  watching 
and  naming  the  shadows  thrown  by  the  fire-light  upon 
the  cave's  wall,  unable  by  reason  of  fetters  to  look 
around  at  the  objects  moving  behind  them,  much  less 
to  rise  and  climb  the  long  ascent  to  the  brighter  light 
above. 

The  innocent-looking  ravine  west  of  the  Hill  of  the 
Nymphs  is  identified  with  the  Barathrum.  In  antiquity 
its  fame  had  penetrated  to  the  underworld,  where  the 
innkeeper's  maid  threatened  to  pitch  the  Pseudo- 
Heracles  "into  the  Barathrum."  And  Herodotus's 
apocryphal  story  is  at  least  hen  trovato.  He  relates 
that,  when  the  ambassadors  of  Darius  came  asking 
tokens  of  submission  from  the  Greeks:  ".Some  [the 
Athenians]  took  the  messengers  and  threw  them  into 
the  Barathrum,  others  [the  Spartans]  into  a  well, 
and  bade  them  take  earth  and  water  from  there  to 
their  King."  Miltiades,  the  hero  of  Marathon,  if  we 
are  to  believe  the  allusion  in  the  "  Gorgias,"  barely 


no   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

escaped  with  a  fine  and  banishment  instead  of  the 
criminal's  end  in  this  same  pit. 

If  even  the  skeleton  of  the  Athenian  Market-place 
could  be  resurrected,  like  that  of  the  Roman  Forum, 
many  scores  of  allusions  would  take  on  a  local  habi- 
tation. The  Agora  was  the  centre  of  life.  In  classic 
times  it  probably  lay  in  the  depression  east  of  the 
"Theseum"  hill,  and  extended,  from  the  slopes  of  the 
Areopagus,  northward  about  to  the  modern  Hadrian 
street.  Pindar,  with  no  idle  flattery,  spoke  of  the  "  fair- 
famed  Agora,  in  sacred  Athens,  inlaid  with  cunning 
workmanship."  Sculptor,  painter,  and  architect  gave 
of  their  best.  The  Prytaneum,  close  to,  or  in  the  Agora, 
was  the  city's  fireside.  Distinguished  foreigners  and 
citizens  here  and  in  the  Tholus  enjoyed,  temporarily 
or  for  life,  the  public  hospitality.  Socrates  ironically 
suggests  to  his  judges  that  the  sentence  really  fitting 
his  case  would  be:  "Maintenance  in  the  Prytaneum, 
much  more  so  indeed  than  if  any  one  of  you  has  come 
off  victor  at  Olympia  with  a  race  horse,  a  pair,  or  a 
four-horse  team."  Plutarch  relates  that  Aristides,  far 
from  enriching  himself  from  the  public  purse,  left  not 
even  enough  for  his  funeral  expenses,  and  that  the 
Athenians  **  married  off  his  daughters  from  the  Pry- 
taneum at  the  public  cost  —  voting  a  dowry  of  three 
thousand  drachmas  to  each."  In  the  stoas  that  faced 
upon  the  Agora  the  citizens  heard  and  discussed  many 
a  new  thing,  from  the  days  when  the  great  painting  of 
the  battle  of  Marathon  was  fresh  in  the  Painted  Porch, 


ATHENS  AFTER  SALAMIS  iii 

to  the  time  when  the  Stoics  appropriated  this  colon- 
nade. In  time  of  war  a  man  would  look  fearfully  at 
the  bulletin  board  near  by,  to  see  if  his  name  was  posted 
for  military  duty ;  or  in  time  of  truce  would  feel  that 
yonder  beautiful  group  of  Peace  with  the  child  Wealth 
best  reproduced  to  the  eyes  the  blessings  so  often  ab- 
sent during  the  wearisome  Peloponnesian  wars,  — 
blessings  which  Bacchylides,  the  admiring  neighbour 
of  Athens,  had  celebrated :  — 

And  now  for  mortals  Peace,  the  mighty  mother,  giveth  birth 
To  Wealth  and  bears  culled  flowers  of  honey'd  minstrelsy. 
She  makes  on  sculptured  altars  of  the  gods  to  blaze 
Thigh  pieces,  in  the  yellow  flame,  of  bullocks  and  of  thick-fleeced 

lambs, 
And  lets  the  youths  give  thought  to  athletes'  toil  and  flutes  and 

revelry. 
Now  in  the  steel-bound  hand-loops  of  the  shield 
Are  stretched  the  dusk-red  spiders*  woven  tapestries; 
The  barbed  spears,  the  two-edged  swords  are  cankered  o'er; 
The  trumpet's  brazen  blare  is  still. 

To  be  near  the  Agora  was  a  desideratum.  The  crip- 
ple, in  Lysias's  oration,  asking  the  Senate  to  continue 
his  pension,  refers  to  the  fact  that  every  one  in  Athens 
has  his  favourite  lounging  place:  '*One  frequents  the 
perfume-seller's,  another  the  barber's,  another  the 
cobbler's ;  and  as  a  rule  the  most  of  them  lounge  into 
the  shops  set  up  nearest  the  Agora,  and  the  very  fewest 
resort  to  those  most  remote  from  it."  Socrates,  too, 
seeking  his  audience  where  the  crowds  gravitated,  was 
often  heard  talking  "in  the  Market-place  near  the 
bankers'  tables."  x^ristophanes,  together  with  the  other 


112   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

comic  writers,  and  Lysias  and  Theophrastus  tell  not 
only  of  other  resorts  —  like  the  fuller's  shop,  the  shield- 
and-spear-maker's  —  but  of  many  special  sub-markets. 
Thus  there  were  by  the  Agora  the  "Pottery"  and 
the  "Vegetable"  Market,  and,  somewhere  near,  the 
"Green-cheese,"  the  "Garlic,"  the  "Wine,"  the  "Oil," 
the  "Fish"  markets.  Of  the  Bird-market  we  hear  in 
some  detail  in  Aristophanes,  —  the  live  pigeons  in  cages, 
strings  of  ortolans,  thrushes  abnormally  inflated,  and 
blackbirds  with  "feathers  shamefully  inserted  in  their 
nostrils " !  In  time  of  war  the  country  folk  thronged 
into  town  to  escape  the  armies  that  were  devastat- 
ing Attica.  In  times  of  peace,  too,  they  came  trooping 
in  on  the  first  of  the  month,  and  to  the  oft-recurring 
festivals.  Menander,  with  his  blended  Stoicism  and 
Epicureanism,  looks  around  in  the  crowded  Agora  and 
compares  human  life  to  a  festival  or  market- fair :  — 

That  man,  O  Parmeno,  I  count  most  fortunate 
Who  quickly  whence  he  came  returns,  when  he,  unvexed, 
Has  looked  on  these  majestic  sights  —  the  common  sun, 
Water  and  clouds,  the  stars  and  fire.   If  thou  shalt  live 
An  hundred  years,  or  if  a  very  few,  thou 'It  always  see 
These  same  sights  present,  grander  ones  thou 'It  ne'er  behold. 
So  reckon  thou  this  time  I'm  speaking  of  as  though 
Some  market-fair  or  trip  to  town,  where  one  may  see 
The  crowd,  the  market,  dice  and  loungers'  haunts; 
Then,  if  thou'rt  first  unto  thy  lodgings,  with  more  gold 
Thou 'It  go  upon  thy  travels  and  shalt  pick  no  brawl; 
While  he  that  tarries  longer,  worn,  his  money  gone, 
Grows  old  and  wretched,  and  forever  knows  some  lack, 
A  wandering  vagrant  finding  enemies  and  plots, 
And  gains  no  death  that's  easy,  staying  out  his  time. 


ATHENS  AFTER  SALAMIS  m 

A  broad  avenue,  flanked  with  porticoes,  ran  from 
the  Market-place  northwest  to  the  Dipylon  gate.  This 
double  gateway,  impressive  even  from  the  remains  of 
its  foundations,  quickens  the  memory  to  recall  the 
generations  of  citizens  and  foreigners  that  have  passed 
this  way.  Along  the  roads  from  Colonus  and  the  Acad- 
emy and  the  Sacred  Way  from  Eleusis,  converging  out- 
side the  gates,  will  come  a  motley  throng  of  Athenian 
ghosts,  gay  or  scurrilous,  militant  or  philosophic,  to 
blot  out  the  consciousness  of  the  modern  city.  Outside 
the  Dipylon,  in  the  "  Outer  Cerameicus,"  is  "the  Street 
of  the  Tombs."  Some  of  the  beautiful  monuments  are 
still  in  situ  to  stimulate  a  detailed  study  of  the  rich 
material  in  the  National  Museum.  It  was  here  that 
the  Athenians  usually  buried  their  dead.  The  roll-call 
of  great  names  stirs  the  imagination  here  as  in  West- 
minster Abbey.  This  is  no  exclusive  privilege  of  one 
place  or  people.  But  there  is  often  an  appropriate  ge- 
nius loci.  As  one  lingers  along  the  Appian  Way,  for  ex- 
ample, deciphering  inscriptions  and  pausing  before  the 
weather-beaten  faces  on  the  monuments,  there  is  a  lurk- 
ing pessimism  and  an  insidious  melancholy  that  flow 
in  from  the  beauty  of  the  Roman  Campagna.  Here, 
however,  in  this  proastion  of  Athens,  this  Suburb  of 
the  Dead,  the  memorials  still  in  place,  with  their  un- 
pretentious sincerity,  give  rather  a  sensation  of  beauty 
and  hope  in  perpetuating  scenes  from  actual  life. 
Even  a  scene  of  parting  has  less  of  hopeless  finality. 
The  warrior  on  his  horse,  the  woman  with  her  jewel- 


ti4   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

box,  suggests  life  and  love,  not  death  and  lamentation. 
Along  yonder  road  from  Eleusis  came  many  an  initiate 
fresh  from  the  Mysteries,  and  some  may  well  have  been 
ready  to  listen  with  hope  to  Pindar's  "  trumpet- blast  for 
immortality":  — 

"  For  them  the  night  all  through, 

In  that  broad  realm  below, 
The  splendour  of  the  sun  spreads  endless  light; 

'Mid  rosy  meadows  bright, 
Their  city  of  the  tombs  with  incense-trees, 

And  golden  chalices 

Of  flowers,  and  fruitage  fair, 

Scenting  the  breezy  air, 
Is  laden.   There  with  horses  and  with  play, 
With  games  and  lyres,  they  while  the  hours  away."  * 

Whether  or  no  we  choose  to  identify  with  Charon  the 
old  man  in  the  boat,  represented  on  one  of  the  stelae 
still  standing,  Death  and  Life  here  confront  each  other. 
iEschylus,  in  his  early  allusion  to  Charon's  boat,  draws 
the  contrast  by  an  antithesis  of  the  black  sails  of  the 
ship  of  Theseus  to  the  god  of  Light,  and  speaks  of 
the  "rowing"  of  the  mourners'  arms  causing  — 

that  dark-sailed  mission-ship,  upon  whose  deck  Apollo 
treads  not  and  the  sunlight  falls  not,  through  Acheron  to 
pass  unto  that  shore  unseen  where  all  must  lodging  find. 

And  Euripides  prepares  his  audience  for  the  pathetic 
departure  of  Alcestis  to  the  underworld  by  a  sharp  dia- 
logue between  Apollo  and  Death,  who  is  at  once  as  old 
and  as  lusty  as  Death  in  the  Morality  plays. 

*  Translated  by  J.  A.  Symonds. 


STREET   OF   THE  TOMBS 
Monument  of  Hegeso 


ATHENS  AFTER  SALAMIS  115 

After  the  battle  of  Chaeronea  Philip  sent  back  the 
ashes  of  the  dead  Athenians,  and  Demosthenes  counted 
it  the  highest  honour  to  deliver  their  funeral  oration. 
But  the  noblest  association  with  -this  spot  is  the  great 
oration  of  Pericles,  who  was  chosen  in  the  course  of  the 
Peloponnesian  War  to  pronounce  the  public  eulogy 
over  the  dead  warriors.  These  were  borne  along  in 
cypress  chests,  with  one  empty  litter  to  represent  those 
whose  bodies  had  not  been  recovered.  The  long  speech 
is  the  incarnation  of  the  Athenian  spirit  and  of  Peri- 
cles's  own  undaunted  policy.  Thucydides  represents 
him  as  saying :  — 

"They  received  praise  that  grows  not  old  and  a  most 
illustrious  tomb ;  not  that  in  which  they  here  are  laid 
but  wherever,  as  occasion  arises,  there  remaineth  the 
ever-living  glory  of  their  word  and  work.  For  the  whole 
earth  is  the  sepulchre  of  famous  men,  and  not  only  in 
their  own  land  does  an  inscription  upon  columns  tell 
of  it,  but  in  other  lands  an  unwritten  memory  dwells 
within  the  mind  of  all." 

The  "Cerameicus"  was  soon  to  receive  Pericles. 
The  great  plague  carried  off  the  orator's  sons,  and, 
overcome  by  grief  and  the  shipwreck  of  his  plans,  he 
died  himself  in  the  next  year. 

Thucydides  describes  the  plague  with  appalling  vig- 
our. The  misery  and  danger  were  aggravated  by  the 
congestion  of  the  country  folk  crowding  in  to  escape 
the  Peloponnesian  invaders.  Bivouacked  in  stifling 
"shacks"  during  the  hot  summer,  they  died  uncared- 


ii6    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

for  and  lay  where  they  fell,  dying  upon  one  another, 
at  home,  in  the  streets,  or  by  the  fountains  where  they 
had  tried  in  vain  to  quench  their  fever. 

In  the  ''(Edipus  Tyrannus"  of  Sophocles  the  plague 
at  Thebes  is  pictured  in  terms  certainly  reminiscent, 
at  least  here  and  there,  of  what  must  have  been  the 
most  awful  memory  of  the  poet's  Hfe.  The  blight  that 
has  fallen  alike  on  the  land  and  on  its  inhabitants  is 
described  by  the  Chorus :  — 

Nay,  for  no  longer  the  glorious  Earth 

Yieldeth  her  young;  nor  by  ever  a  birth 

Of  a  child  do  our  women  change  sorrow  to  mirth. 

You  may  see  how  they're  flocking  like  birds  of  unrest 

Or  swifter  than  fire's  unquenchable  quest, 

Afar  to  the  shore  of  the  God  in  the  West. 

They  are  unnumbered,  dead  and  dying, 

The  city's  children,  unpitied  they're  lying, 

With  no  one  to  mourn  them,  outstretched  on  the  ground, 

Death  and  pestilence  spreading  around. 

Thucydides  relates,  too,  that  the  Athenians  discussed 
an  ancient  oracle  which  told  how  a  "  Dorian  war  will 
befall  and  a  pestilence  come  as  companion";  and  that 
in  the  midst  of  their  despair  they  could  debate  whether 
the  oracle  said  ''pestilence"  (Aoi/ios)  or  "famine" 
(Ai/Aos),  either  word  being  appropriate  enough.  History 
repeats  itself.  At  Athens  in  1906,  during  a  virulent 
outbreak  of  smallpox,  with  the  pest-houses  overflowing, 
the  newspapers  calmly  turned  to  the  really  vital  ques- 
tion of  the  proper  Greek  word  for  the  disease — whether 
it  should  be  evloyia  (cuAoyta),  or  effloyi£  {€v<f>\oyia),  .  > 


ATHENS  AFTER   SALAMIS  117 

Amidst  the  splendour  of  the  public  buildings  the 
dwelling-houses  long  remained  insignificant.  The 
streets  were  dark  at  night.  The  houses  had  few  win- 
dows to  let  out  such  light  as  might  come  from .  the 
**dim  and  stingy  wick"  of  some  miser  watching  his 
hoards,  or  from  that  of  a  perplexed  father  reckoning 
up  his  son's  horse-racing  debts,  as  we  find  old  Strep- 
siades  doing  in  the  "Clouds"  of  Aristophanes:  — 

The  month's  end's  coming  and  the  interest  rolling  up. 
I  say,  slave,  light  a  lamp  and  bring  my  ledger  here. 

Slave  (entering). 
There's  scarce  a  drop  of  oil  in  this  here  lamp  of  ours. 

Strepsiades. 

O  my !   Why  did  you,  tell  me,  light  that  thirsty  lamp  ? 
Come  here  that  you  may  get  a  weeping! 

Slave. 

And  why  so? 

Strepsiades. 
Because  you  put  in  one  of  those  fat,  greedy  wicks. 

In  the  "  Wasps"  the  jurors,  out  before  dawn  to  secure 
a  job  at  the  court-room,  pick  their  way  along  the  dark 
streets  with  only  the  link-boys  to  guard  them  against 
stumbling-stones  and  refuse. 

Member  of  Chorus. 
Let's  march  by  the  lamp  and  everywhere  look  well  about,  around 

us, 
Lest  here  or  there  should  be  some  stone  to  trip  us  and  confound  us. 


ii8   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Boy. 
Watch  out  there,  father,  father,  for  this  dirt,  watch  out! 

Member  of  Chorus. 
Pick  up  a  chip  here  from  the  ground  and  snuff  the  lamp.  ' 

Boy. 
No,  with  my  finger  thus  I  choose  to  snuff  the  lamp! 

Member  of  Chorus, 
What's  got  into  your  head,  with  hand  to  shove  the  wick. 
And  that  when  oil's  so  scanty?   There,  you  fool,  take  that! 

The  flat-roofed  houses  were  low.  Highwaymen 
could  sit  on  the  roofs  and  jump  down  on  their  victims. 
Burglars,  who  preferred  a  change  from  the  conven- 
tional method  of  digging  through  the  soft  bricks, 
could  climb  over  the  house-wall.  The  street-mire  and 
''Apaches"  were  familiar  in  violet-crowned  Athens. 
Demosthenes  on  occasion  loads  his  terrible  Gatling 
gun  with  details  picked  up  from  the  street.  In  his 
oration  "Against  Conon"  he  describes  a  brawl.  The 
plaintiff  recites  how  the  said  Conon  and  his  crew  had 
met  him  near  tjie  Leocorion  at  the  Agora,  tripped  up 
his  legs,  trampled  him  in  the  mire,  cut  his  lip,  and 
bunged  up  his  eyes ;  how,  finally,  as  he  lay  there,  Conon 
was  egged  on  by  the  others  to  flap  his  arms  like  wings 
and  to  crow  over  him  like  a  victorious  rooster. 

The  Gymnasia  of  Athens  emphasize  one  of  the  most 
characteristic  features  of  Athenian  life  —  the  close  in- 
terrelation of  the  physical  and  the  intellectual.  Here 
the  youths  were  trained  in  their  naked  beauty ;  here  the 


ATHENS  AFTER   SALAMIS  119 

philosophers  collected  their  data ;  here  they  afterwards 
taught  their  doctrines.  To-day,  unhappily,  we  must 
content  ourselves  with  recalling  the  natural  beauty 
surrounding  the  Academy  at  Colonus,  or  reconstruct- 
ing scenes  like  those  in  the  "  Euthydemus,"  the  "  Char- 
mides,"  the  "Laches,"  or  "Lysis"  of  Plato.  At  the 
opening  of  the  "Lysis"  Socrates  is  making  his  way 
close  under  the  outside  of  the  north  wall  of  the  city, 
bound  from  the  Academy  for  the  Lyceum,  which  was 
probably  somewhere  east  of  the  present  King's  Gar- 
dens. Thus  the  path  between  Plato's  Academy  and 
the  future  school  of  Aristotle  was  worn  by  the  footsteps 
of  their  great  predecessor.  Socrates  on  this  occasion, 
however,  was  deflected  by  an  eager  youth  to  enter  a 
new  palaestra  just  opened  near  the  fountain  of  Panops, 
possibly  near  the  gate  of  Diochares  now  placed  by 
conjecture  near  the  intersection  of  the  Street  of  the 
Muses  and  Boule  Street.  He  is  persuaded  without 
difficulty  and  holds  a  discussion  on  Friendship  with 
the  handsome  youths  gathered  there.  In  the  "Char- 
mides"  likewise  he  goes  to  another  palaestra,  Taureas, 
which  was  near  the  Itonian  gate,  probably  not  far  from 
the  Olympieum.  He  had  just  come  back  the  evening 
before  from  the  engagement  at  Potidaea,  and  is  eagerly 
questioned  about  the  battle.  As  usual,  he  guides  the 
talk  into  other  channels  and  there  follows  a  discussion 
upon  Temperance. 

Although  the  sites  of  the  courts  are  uncertain,  we 
know  what  went  on  in  them.   The  Athenian  passion 


I20   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

for  litigation  is  a  commonplace.  Lucian's  Icaromenip- 
pus,  looking  down  from  the  moon  on  the  kingdoms  of 
the  classic  world,  characterizes  the  inhabitants  thus; 
**I  could  see  the  nomad  Scyths  in  their  wagons;  the 
Egyptian  farming;  the  Cilician  buccaneering;  the  Spar- 
tan flogging;  and  the  Athenian  pettifogging."  So,  in 
the  newly  organized  Bird-town  of  Aristophanes,  one 
of  the  first  visitors,  following  hard  after  the  parricide, 
is  a  Law-suit-hatcher.  He  ''cannot  dig,"  but  is  not 
ashamed  of  his  blackmailing  trade.  He  comes  to  the 
birds  for  wings  to  bear  him  around  among  the  Isles 
as  "Summoner." 

The  "Wasps"  is  a  comedy  directed  against  this 
frailty  of  the  Athenians.  The  old  Philocleon  (dema- 
gogue-lover), on  account  of  his  inordinate  passion  for 
sitting  on  juries,  is  forcibly  detained  at  home  by  his  son 
who,  to  console  his  father,  arranges  a  trial  of  the  dog 
Labes  (Snap)  who  has  rushed  into  the  kitchen  and  de- 
voured a  Sicilian  cheese.  The  trial  is  conducted  with 
detailed  and  rigorous  conventionality.  The  defendant 
is  finally  acquitted,  thanks  to  the  puppies,  who  are 
brought  into  court  and  "whining  beg  him  off,  entreat 
and  weep!" — a  parody  on  the  common  but  illegal 
method  of  influencing  a  jury,  which  Socrates  scorned 
to  adopt  when  on  trial  for  his  life. 

With  the  exception  of  the  Acropolis  itself,  the  great 
Dionysiac  Theatre  perhaps  offers  most  to  allure  the 
visitor.  Although  in  its  present  state,  with  the  later 
.disfigurements  of  Roman  times,  we  can  only  with  diffi- 


ATHENS  AFTER  SALAMIS  121 

culty  form  a  detailed  picture  of  its  structure  even  in 
the  fourth  century,  yet  the  slight  traces  of  the  circular 
orchestra,  now  identified  beneath  it,  entitle  the  visitor 
to  associate  with  this  site  the  classic  drama  and  to  give 
free  play  to  not  unnatural  sentiment.  It  is  an  epitome 
of  the  Athenian  drama.  It  interprets,  and  is  inter- 
preted by,  a  wide  range  of  literature.  Here,  too,  in 
later  times  were  gathered  popular  assemblies.  Here, 
looking  over  plain  and  sea,  sat  generations  of  citizens 
and  guests  to  be  moved  to  laughter  or  to  tears.  Here 
the  **  Shameless  Man  "  of  Theophrastus  managed  to  get 
himself  and  his  children  in  for  nothing  by  manipu- 
lating the  places  which  he  had  purchased  for  his  for- 
eign visitors. 

^  And  not  only  could  the  philosopher  Theophrastus 
find  subjects  for  his  character  sketches  among  the 
theatre-goers,  and  turn  the  critics  into  material  for  his 
critique,  but  his  friend,  the  playwright  Menander, 
could  in  his  comedy  use  the  dramatic  troupe  as  matter 
for  his  sententious  characterization.  Already  in  the 
time  of  Aristophanes  the  chorus  was  unequally  con- 
stituted: some  members  trained  as  star  performers 
to  take  a  more  active  part,  others  to  move  as  mutes 
in  the  background.  Menander  utilizes  this  custom  to 
illustrate,  in  a  fragment  preserved  to  us,  the  workers 
and  the  drones  of  life :  — 

Just  as  in  choruses  not  every  one  doth  sing, 
But  certain  two  or  three  mere  speechless  dummies  stand 
;       Fining  the  rows,  so  here  't  is  somehow  similar : 

These  fill  a  space,  while  these,  to  whom  God  grants  it,  live/   ; 


122    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

The  precinct  of  the  Asclepieum,  adjoining  the  Thea- 
tre, was  a  Sanatorium  where  religion  and  faith-cures 
were  combined  with  actual  medical  skill.  In  the  '*Plu- 
tus  "  of  Aristophanes  the  blind  god,  Wealth,  is  restored 
to  discriminating  vision.  His  head  was  covered  by 
'* Panacea"  with  a  purple  cloth,  and  two  expert  snakes 
operated  upon  his  eyes.*  This  comic  scene  is  not,  it  may 
easily  be  credited,  too  much  of  a  burlesque  upon  some 
of  the  practices  at  such  places.  Magic  miracles,  in- 
cluding the  "absent  treatment"  of  recalcitrant  lovers, 
are  not  unknown  in  other  ages.  But  a  visit  to  the  fa- 
mous health-resort  of  the  great  school  of  Hippocrates, 
on  the  island  of  Cos,  will  tend  to  inspire  a  respect  for 
Greek  therapeutics.  The  "open-air"  treatment  od 
the  mountain  terrace  overlooking  the  sea  may  have 
been  modern  enough,  and,  along  with  the  use  of  the 
sulphur  spring,  suggests  both  technical  knowledge  and 
common  sense. 

Close  by  the  Theatre  to  the  east,  hemmed  in  by 
modern  houses,  the  beautiful  little  circular  shrine,  the 
Choragic  Monument  of  Lysicrates,  reminds  us  of  the 
cost  and  rivalry  attendant  upon  bringing  out  the  dramas. 
The  weathered  sculpture  around  the  top  speaks  once 
again  of  the  inseparable  connection  of  Athenian  life 
and  literature.  It  carries  us  back  to  the  Homeric  Hymn 
to  Dionysus.  The  pirates  who  kidnapped  the  god 
are  here  undergoing  punishment;  some,  already  half 

*  See  Gardner,  Ancient  Athens,  pp.  429  ff.,  for  a  vivid  account  of 
this  scene  and  subject. 


ATHENS  AFTER  SALAMIS  123 

changed  into  dolphins,  are  diving  into  the  sea.  In  the 
hymn  the  pirates,  who  have  carried  off  the  youth  in  his 
purple  robe,  deem  him  a  rich  prize  for  ransom.  But 
the  vine  with  clustering  grapes  that  presently  entwines 
sail  and  yards  proclaims  the  god.  He  transformed  him- 
self into  a  bear,  then  a  lion,  and  they  at  the  sight,  — 

All  of  them  shunning  the  doom  that  was  on  them,  together  out- 
springing, 
Leaped  to  the  water  divine  and,  leaping,  were  turned  into  dolphins. 

The  combination  at  Athens  of  natural  beauty  and 
material  splendour  with  moral  and  intellectual  worth 
called  forth  praise  from  both  guests  and  citizens.  To 
Bacchylides  of  Ceos  the  city  is  "spacious  Athens," 
"splendour-loving."  The  Graces  "wreath-winning 
and  violet-eyed"  are  to  dower  his  songs  with  honour 
when  he  addresses  himself  to  its  specific  praise:  — 

Brooding  thought  of  the  Cean  isle 
Poet's  care  men  praised  erst-while, 

Weave  me  now  a  web  of  song 

Resplendent,  fit  for  Athens  strong 

Where  love  and  loveliness  belong. 

And  Pindar,  fresh  from  the  gardens  of  Thebes,  was 
impressed  by  the  beauty  of  Athens  at  the  vernal 
Dionysia :  — 

The  portals  of  the  chamber  of  the  Hours  open  wide,, 
and  growing  plants,  now  nectar  sweet,  perceive  the  advent 
of  the  fragrant  Spring;  then,  then  on  earth  immortal  shower 
the  lovely  tufts  of  violets,  then  in  the  hair  the  roses  are 
entwined. 


124   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

A  guest-present  most  highly  prized  by  the  Athenians 
is  preserved  in  another  fragment  from  Pindar :  — 

Radiant,  violet-crowned,  by  minstrels  sung, 
Bulwark  of  Hellas,  Athens  illustrious. 

But  Aristides  the  Just  might  have  as  easily  escaped 
ostracism  as  could  this  overv^orked  epithet,  "violet- 
crowned,"  escape  the  irreverence  of  Aristophanes. 
Whenever  foreign  envoys,  he  says,  wish  to  cheat  us 
Athenians,  they  call  us  "violet-crowned,"  and  forth- 
with we  are  all  attention. 

Among  all  the  native  poets  no  one  has  given  freer 
expression  to  his  feeling  for  the  beauty  of  Athens  than 
Euripides,  unhappy  in  his  personal  life  and  iconoclastic 
in  his  attitude  towards  old  traditions.  He  breathes  the 
air,  stainless  and  of  a  more  ethereal  violet  than  the  sea, 
and  sings  of  the  concord  of  Wisdom  and  the  Heavenly 
Aphrodite :  — 

Blest  are  the  children  of  Erechtheus  of  the  olden  time, 
the  children  of  the  happy  gods,  who  from  a  land  inviolate 
and  sacred  feed  on  wisdom  famed  afar,  and  go  upon  their 
way  forever,  daintily  enfolded  by  that  bright,  bright  air, 

And  Cypris,  drawing  water  from  Cephlsus  flowing  fair, 
breathes  down  upon  the  land  the  gentle  breath  of  winds 
with  sweetness  laden  and  ever  with  her  hair  encompassed 
with  blown  roses'  fragrant  coronals  keeps  sending  down  the 
Loves  who  have  their  seat  by  side  of  Wisdom,  coadjutors 
they  of  Virtue  manifold. 

Through  the  transparent  candour  of  the  philoso- 
pher's robe  the  soul  of  the  poet  Plato  is  ever  shining. 


ATHENS  AFTER  SALAMIS  125 

But  like  ^schylus  he  is  a  poet  militant.  If  he  walks 
by  the  Ilissus  he  interprets  in  terms  of  the  spiritual 
the  physical  charm  of  tree  and  water  and  the  chirping 
insect ;  if  he  goes  down  to  Phaleron,  the  JEgesm  does 
not  bring  in  for  him  "  the  eternal  note  of  sadness,"  but 
his  soul  has  "sight  of  that  immortal  sea  which  brought 
us  hither";  and  in  the  heaven's  vault,  overarching 
Attica,  he  sees  "many  ways  to  and  fro"  where  drive 
the  chariots  of  the  gods  whom  "he  who  will  and  can" 
may  follow,  "for  from  the  choir  divine  all  grudging 
stands  aloof ! "  If  to  Plato  the  Athens  of  the  fourth  cen- 
tury seemed  imperfect,  if  he  was  even  embittered  by 
the  judicial  murder  of  his  master,  it  was  with  the  truest 
patriotism  that  he  turned  to  construct  an  ideal  state. 
His  sense  of  law  and  order  was  deep-rooted.  It  was 
.with  lofty  optimism  that  he  urged  his  hearers  not  to 
rest  content  with  politics  as  they  are,  but  to  look  to  "  the 
pattern  that  is  laid  up  in  heaven  for  him  who  wills  to 
see  and,  seeing,  so  to  plant  his  dwelling." 


CHAPTER  VI 

OLD   GREECE    IN    NEW    ATHENS 

"  Born  into  life !  —  't  is  we, 
And  not  the  world,  are  new." 

Matthew  Arnold. 

TRAVELLERS  frcsh  from  Italy  perceive  an  Ori- 
ental picturesqueness  in  modern  Athens,  but 
the  immediate  impression  of  its  Occidental 
character  gained  by  those  who  come  from  Egypt  or 
Constantinople  is  the  correct  one.  The  old  narrow 
streets,  reminiscent  of  the  Turkish  period,  are  few  in 
number  and  lie  on  the  northern  side  of  the  Acropolis. 
Back  of  them,  further  to  the  north  and  west,  lies  a  very 
clean  and  well-planned  town  which  boasts  of  being  a 
little  Paris.  The  substantial  houses  and  hotels,  the 
dignified  palaces  of  the  royal  princes  and  the  build- 
ings of  the  University  and  Museum,  the  conventional 
shops  and  public  squares,  the  boulevards  and  gardens, 
give  to  Athens  the  general  appearance  of  any  Euro- 
pean city  that  is  moving  fast  toward  and  beyond  a 
population  of  two  hundred  thousand,  and  is  not  yet 
disfigured  by  the  smoke-stacks  of  factories.  A  welcome 
individuality  of  taste  is  shown  chiefly  in  the  classical 
architecture  of  the  group  of  University  buildings  and  of 
the  Museum. 


OLD  GREECE  IN  NEW  ATHENS   127 

Even  to  pilgrims  and  strangers  the  modern  city 
reveals  an  eager  and,  in  many  aspects,  a  charming  life. 
But  a  special  relationship  follows  in  the  wake  of  famil- 
iarity with  the  new,  added  to  knowledge  of  the  old, 
Athens.  The  student  of  Greek  literature  finds  that  he 
need  not  always  seek  the  ruins  of  antiquity  or  the  per- 
manent stage-setting  of  Nature  when  he  desires  a  sense 
of  fellowship  with  the  past.  At  any  street  corner  this 
sense  may  be  quickened  by  some  person  or  object 
which  is  an  integral  part  of  the  city's  modern  life. 
Ancient  literature  not  only  gleams,  like  "a  stately  pal- 
ace hall,  with  golden  pillars  of  song,"  but  also  mirrors 
common  things,  trivial  or  serious,  which  subtly  unite 
the  times  of  Homer  with  those  of  Pericles,  and  both 
with  our  own. 

Greek  gentlemen  conspicuously  engaged  in  having 
their  boots  blacked  share  the  habits  if  not  the  politics 
of  Aristophanes' s  dicast  who  was  always  seeking  the 
sponge  and  the  basin  of  oil-mixed  pitch  for  his  dusty 
shoes.  Street-venders  from  Rhodes,  who  beguile  for- 
eign ladies  with  embroideries,  are  plying  the  craft  of  the 
Phoenician  peddler  at  the  home  of  Eumaeus,  then  a 
happy  princelet  and  later  the  swineherd  of  Odysseus. 
The  peddler  displayed  to  Eumaeus's  lady  mother  and 
her  maidens  a  golden  chain  set  here  and  there  with 
amber  beads,  and  "they  offered  him  their  price." 
Bargaining,  the  basis  of  all  transactions,  is  not  always 
is  amiable  as  it  is  in  Rome.  An  Athenian  cab-driver 
in  search  of  drachmas  can  be  as  obstinate  as  the  corpse 


128   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

in  Aristophanes's  "Frogs,"  whom  Dionysus  asked  to 
take  his  luggage  to  Hades: — 

Dionysus. 

You  there !   You  dead  man !   You,  I  mean !   I  'm  calling  you. 
Good  fellow,  wilt  to  Hades  carry  down  my  traps? 

Corpse. 
How  many? 

Dionysus. 
These. 

Corpse. 

Wilt  make  it  a  two  drachma  job? 

Dionysus. 
Not  I,  by  Zeus,  but  less. 

Corpse  (to  the  bearers). 

Start  up  the  funeral,  you! 

Dionysus. 
Good  sir,  one  moment !   See  if  we  can't  come  to  terms. 

Corpse. 
You'll  put  down  drachmas  two,  or  else  don't  talk  to  me.  '* 

Dionysus. 
One  drachma  and  a  half  ?  A  bargain  ?   Come,  take  that. 

Corpse. 
May  I  be  —  resurrected,  if  I  do  1 

Xanthias. 

What  airs! 
The  cursed  scamp!  Plague  take  him!   I  will  go  myself. 

Dionysus  and  his  servant  had  made  their  entrance 
with  a  donkey,  ridden  by  Xanthias  who  was  carrying 


OLD  GREECE  IN  NEW  ATHENS   129 

the  traps  on  a  pole  over  his  shoulder.  No  age  has 
allowed  the  donkey  to  escape  his  manifest  destiny  of 
bearing  burdens,  nor  has  age  or  custom  exhausted  his 
capacity  of  occasional  revolt.  The  persevering  attack 
of  the  Trojans  on  Ajax  could  be  likened  only  to  the 
cudgelling  by  boys  of  a  lazy  ass  which  has  strayed  into 
a  cornfield  and  will  not  desist  from  wasting  the  deep 
crop  —  an  episode  as  modern  as  it  is  Homeric.  But 
for  the  most  part  the  little  beasts  carry  patiently  every- 
thing that  is  portable,  as  they  did  when,  in  the  annual 
transportation  of  the  properties  used  in  the  Eleusinian 
Mysteries,  their  dull  share  in  a  great  business  became 
proverbial.  Their  panniers  of  lemons  and  oranges  and 
crates  of  water-jars  are  both  antique  and  modern, 
and  a  famous  lost  picture  of  Polygnotus  comes  to  life 
in  a  donkey  loaded  with  fresh  green  boughs,  moving 
toward  the  spectator. 

That  Dionysus,  in  search  of  a  carrier,  so  conveniently 
saw  a  corpse  in  the  street  was  due  to  the  Athenian  cus- 
tom of  bearing  the  dead  to  the  grave  on  open  biers. 
The  same  custom,  shocking  to  foreign  observers,  pre- 
vails to-day;  and  at  almost  any  hour,  in  any  thorough- 
fare, may  be  seen  one  of  these  funeral  processions,  with 
the  cover  of  the  coffin  carried  in  front  and  the  uncov- 
ered face  exposed  to  the  curious  and  the  indifferent. 
Thus  exposed,  the  dead  Alcestis  was  brought  out  from 
her  palace,  and  the  cortege,  with  which  the  modern 
procession  seems  to  mingle,  moves  off  the  stage  with 
prayers  that  Hermes  and  Persephone  may  kindly  wel- 


\ 


130   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

come  this  traveller  to  their  realm.  These  deities  have 
been  forgotten,  but  their  business  is  transferred  to  him 
who  was  once  their  grim  agent.  To  the  modern  Greek 
peasant  Charon  is  Death.  Alcestis  dreaded  him  as  a 
messenger  and  ferryman :  — 

I  see,  I  see  the  two-oar'd  skiflF.  With  hand  on  pole 
Charon,  the  ferryman  of  the  dead,  thus  calleth  me : 
'Why  dost  thou  loiter?   Hasten!   Thou 'rt  delaying  us.* 
With  words  like  these  in  angry  haste  he  urgeth  me. 

To-day  he  rides  in  his  own  might :  — 

"Why  are  the  mountains  so  dark,  and  why  so  woebegone? 
Is  it  the  wind  at  war  there,  or  does  the  rain-storm  scourge  them  ? 
It  is  not  the  wind  at  war  there,  it  is  not  the  rain  that  scourges, 
It  is  only  Charon  passing  across  them  with  the  dead; 
He  drives  the  youths  before  him,  the  old  folk  drags  behind, 
And  he  bears  the  tender  little  ones  in  a  line  at  his  saddle-bow."  * 

Around  the  next  corner,  especially  toward  the  end 
of  Lent  when  spring  lamb  is  due  in  the  markets  and 
shepherds  troop  to  town,  another  song  from  the  "Alces- 
tis "  may  displace  the  strain  of  melancholy.  For  Apollo, 
Pythian  lord  of  song,  once  served  Admetus,  — 

Like  a  shepherd,  piping,  piping, 
Hymeneal  echoes  raising 
Down  along  the  sloping  hillside 
.     Where  the  woolly  flocks  are  grazing. 

In  the  guise  of  a  young  man,  the  herdsman  of  a  flock, 
most  delicate,  as  are  the  sons  of  kings,  Athena  once 
appeared  to  Odysseus.  And  it  was  to  a  man  who  was 
pasturing  his   flocks   on  many-fountained    Ida   that 

*  Greek  peasant  song,  translated  by  Passow.  Cf.  Sir  Rennell 
Redd,  The  Customs  and  Lore  of  Modern  Greece,  p.  286. 


OLD  GREECE  IN  NEW  ATHENS   131 

Aphrodite  gave  her  immortal  heart.  Perhaps  there- 
after in  the  streets  of  Troy  Anchises  made  people  think 
suddenly  of  early  dawns  on  the  mountain-side  when 
the  silver  car  of  the  moon  hangs  low  over  the  sea 
and  the  nightingale  sings  and  the  bleating  flocks  an- 
swer the  pipe's  ethereal  cry.  In  Athens  a  transient  shep- 
herd, with  his  crook  and  his  coat  of  fleece,  may  fling 
the  townsman's  thoughts  abroad  to  the  men  he  has 
seen  among  the  hills  of  Arcadia,  where  as  of  old  a 
misty  night  is  hateful  to  shepherds  and  goatherds,  and 
a  bright  moon  their  heart's  delight ;  or  in  Lesbos,  where 
still  in  mountain  pastures  the  hyacinth  is  trampled 
under  foot  and  darkens  the  ground.  A  flock  of  sheep 
following  the  bellwether  from  the  country  to  the  town 
is  a  reminder  that  the  Greeks  before  Troy  were  ordered 
about  Hke  a  great  flock  of  white  ewes  by  the  thick- 
fleeced  leader,  Odysseus ;  and  that  the  astute  one,  in  the 
course  of  his  later  adventures,  saved  himself  from  the 
wrath  of  blind  Polyphemus  by  clinging  face  upwards 
and  with  a  steady  heart,  beneath  the  shaggy  belly  of  his 
best  and  goodliest  ram.  Aristophanes  in  the  "Wasps" 
parodies  the  Homeric  ram.  Here  it  is  the  family  donkey 
which,  led  out  to  be  sold,  is  smuggling  under  its  shaggy 
belly  the  old  man  imprisoned  by  his  son  to  cure  him  of 
the  "  jury  habit."  The  dejected  donkey  is  addressed  by 
the  son :  — 

Pack  ass !  why  weepest  thou  ?   Because  thou  shalt  be  sold 
To-day?   Come,  double-quick!   Why  these  repeated  groans 
Unless,  perchance,  that  some  Odysseus  thou  dost  bear  ? 


132   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Athens  is  a  bustling  capital,  but  to  the  on-looker 
every  Easter  lamb  becomes  a  Golden  Fleece,  and  — 

"A  story  lingereth  yet, 
A  voice  of  the  mountains  old."  * 

The  Easter  feast  is  of  great  importance  in  Greece 
because  the  Lenten  fast  is  so  scrupulously  observed. 
At  all  times  the  working  people  are  temperate  enough 
to  have  pleased  Aristophanes,  who  liked  to  dwell  on 
the  simple  living  of  a  generation  before  his  own,  when 
from  the  country  districts  men  trooped  in  to  the  assem- 
bly,- 

"Each  with  his  own  little 
Goatskin  of  wine, 
Each  with  three  olives,  two 
Onions,  one  loaf  in  his 
Wallet,  to  dine."  f 

But  during  parts  of  Lent  almost  everything  is  forbid- 
den. A  man  who  has  guided  you  up  Pentelicus  will 
accept  from  your  lunch-basket  only  a  few  olives  and 
an  orange  to  supplement  his  own  piece  of  coarse  bread. 
The  markets  are  in  the  older  and  most  picturesque 
part  of  the  city,  but  only  a  modern  Aristophanes  could 
make  them  into  scenes  of  rollicking  farce  shot  through 
with  political  purpose.  Provincial  Megarians  with  pigs 
to  sell,  uncouth  Boeotians  bringing  in  vegetables  and 
game,  knavish  Athenians  offering  garlic  and  salt  and 
anchovies  from  Phaleron  —  probably  the  types  are 
still  here,  dialects,  morals  and  all,  awaiting  their  sacred 
bard. 

*  Euripides,  Electra,  701,  translated  by  Gilbert  Murray.     , 
t  Ecclesiazusae,  306,  translated  by  Rogers. 


OLD  GREECE  IN  NEW  ATHENS   133 

In  the  same  district  lies  the  bazaar  known  as  Shoe 
Lane,  where  cobblers  and  tailors  and  carpenters  work 
in  the  open,  protected  by  awnings.  Socrates,  keen- 
eyed  for  handicraft  and  homely  illustrations,  often 
must  have  watched  their  forebears.  Not  far  from  the 
shoemakers,  the  coppersmiths,  in  the  same  district  as 
of  old,  are  suitably  gathered  in  Hephaestus  Street, 
whence  the  sound  of  ringing  hammers  echoes  afar. 
The  Homeric  picture  of  Hephaestus  in  his  forge  on 
Olympus  is  duplicated  in  any  little  forge  along  the 
modern  street,  when  a  workman  rises  from  his  anvil 
and  with  a  sponge  wipes  his  face  and  hand  and  sturdy 
neck  and  shaggy  breast.  In  more  than  one  part  of  the 
city  the  "bankers'  tables,"  at  which  also  Socrates  used 
to  seek  his  crowd,  are  reproduced  in  the  much  fre- 
quented tables  of  the  money  changers. 
.  The  open-air  bakeries  of  his  day  also  exist  again  and 
tempt  with  their  bread  and  plain  cakes  the  exhausted 
sight-seer,  whatever  his  philosophy.  But  a  Platonist 
is  deterred  at  the  threshold  of  a  pastry-cook's  in  the 
fashionable  shopping  district  by  the  remembrance  that 
in  the  ideal  Ufe  there  is  no  place  for  "those  celebrated 
delicacies,  the  Athenian  confectionery." 

Modern  Athens  is  too  arid  to  afford  many  public 
fountains,  but  women  still  draw  water  from  the  meagre 
spring  Callirrhoe,  on  the  edge  of  the  Ilissus,  not  far 
from  the  Zeus  columns.  This  spring,  in  name  and  situ- 
ation, is  still  identified  by  some  experts  with  the  town- 
spring  of  primitive  Athens  and  the  later  Nine  Spouts. 


134    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

The  traveller  who  throws  in  his  fortunes  with  the 
archaeological  opposition  must  at  least  find  in  the  lesser 
Callirrhoe  the  Athenian  counterpart  of  the  fountains 
which  in  so  many  of  the  towns  and  villages  of  Greece 
perpetuate,  in  usefulness  and  charm,  an  antique  life 
of  homely  activities  transmuted  into  poetry.  The 
townspeople  of  Odysseus  drew  their  water  just  outside 
the  city  from  a  wayside  spring  deep  in  an  alder  thicket, 
where  a  basin  had  been  fashioned  to  catch  the  cold 
stream  falling  from  a  cliff.  In  the  old  days  of  peace, 
when  the  plain  was  safe,  the  wives  and  daughters  of 
the  men  of  Troy  had  washed  the  family  clothes  in 
broad  stone  troughs  beside  the  two  springs  that  fed 
the  Scamander.  Nausicaa  of  Phaeacia  and  her  maidens 
did  the  palace  washing  so  far  from  the  town  that  the 
occasion  involved  a  day's  excursion  and  a  generous 
lunch-basket  packed  by  the  Queen.  But  there  was  a 
spring  of  drinking  water  nearer,  for,  when  Odysseus 
was  entering  the  city,  Athena  met  him  in  the  form  of  a 
young  girl  carrying  a  pitcher.  At  Eleusis,  also,  in  the 
royal  age,  the  king's  fawnlike  daughters,  their  crocus- 
yellow  hair  dancing  on  their  shoulders,  drew  water  for 
the  palace  in  vessels  of  bronze  from  the  Maiden  Well. 
In  classical  Athens,  as  to-day,  only  the  poorer  women 
went  for  their  own  water,  and  perhaps  it  was  after 
meeting  one  who  looked  tired  and  hopeless  that  Euripi- 
des made  Electra,  Agamemnon's  daughter,  given  in 
marriage  to  a  peasant  in  Argos  to  further  her  mother's 
schemes,  cry  aloud  to  the  night :  — 


OLD   GREECE   IN  NEW  ATHENS      135 

O  Night,  dark  foster-mother  of  the  golden  stars, 

Thy  shelter  folds  me  while  this  jar  bows  low  my  head 

As  to  and  from  the  river-springs  I  come  and  go. 

Only  in  the  Panathenaic  procession  did  the  carrying 
of  water-jars  become  ennobled.  To-day  a  working 
girl  may  be  seen  in  a  pose  suggesting  that  of  the  maidens 
of  the  Phidian  frieze. 

The  folk-lore  and  customs  of  modern  Greece,  as 
heirs  of  the  past,  have  been  carefully  scrutinized.  Any 
knowledge  that  can  be  culled  from  special  treatises  will 
everywhere  increase  the  traveller's  sense  of  historic  con- 
tinuity and  will  enrich  his  pleasure  in  meeting  the  coun- 
try folk.  But  by  means  of  only  a  modicum  of  Greek 
poetry  he  may  discover  for  himself  in  Athens  certain 
ancient  beliefs  and  practices.  On  the  first  of  March, 
associated  like  the  May  Day  of  colder  climates  with 
the  blossoming  of  spring,  bands  of  boys  go  about  the 
streets  carrying  the  wooden  image  of  a  bird,  singing  a 
carol  which  announces  the  arrival  of  the  swallow,  and 
begging  gifts.  One  of  these  songs  from  Thessaly  be- 
gins:— 

She  is  here,  she  is  here,  the  swallow! 
Cometh  another  of  honey'd  song. 
She  percheth,  twittereth  all  day  long, 
Sweet  are  her  notes  that  follow. 

That  the  same  custom,  no  newer  than  the  recurrence 
of  Nature's  happiest  gifts,  enchanted  the  boys  of  an- 
cient Athens  we  may  infer  from  our  knowledge  of  it 
in  "seagirt"  Rhodes.   There  the  carol  began:  —  ' 


136    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

"She  is  here,  she  is  here,  the  swallow! 
Fair  seasons  bringing,  fair  years  to  follow! 
Her  belly  is  white, 
Her  back  black  as  night! 
From  your  rich  house 
Roll  forth  to  us 
Tarts,  wines  and  cheese: 
Or  if  not  these, 
Oatmeal  and  barley  cake 
The  swallow  deigns  to  take."  * 

When  the  spring  was  late,  Aristophanes's  peevish  old 
man  was  probably  not  the  only  one  to  say:  "Zeus!  is 
the  swallow  never  going  to  come  ?  "  Nor  under  a  punc- 
tual March  sun  was  his  sneak  thief  the  only  one  to 
talk  about  the  weather :  — 

"  Haunting  about  the  butcher's  shops,  the  weather  being  mild, 
*  See,  boys,'  says  I,  *the  swallow  there  !  why,  summer's  come,'  I 
say, 
And  when  they  turned  to  gape  and  stare  I  snatched  a  steak  away."  f 

In  graver  poetry  the  dusky  swallow  of  Simonides  shared 
with  the  lovely-voiced  nightingale  of  Sappho  the  hon- 
our of  announcing  the  fragrant  spring. 

Other  seasons  in  Athens  had  their  crop  of  mendicant 
carols,  and  the  boyish  custom  of  celebrating  Apollo  at 
one  of  his  summer  festivals  by  going  about  from  house 
to  house  and  singing  songs  of  good  wishes  is  suggested 
in  the  modern  celebration  of  New  Year's  or  St.  Basil's 
day.  It  is  even  possible  that  the  rough  little  model  of 
a  ship  carried  by  the  boys,  as  if  to  illustrate  the  sea- 

*  Translated  by  J.  A.  Symonds. 
*  f  Knights,  570,  translated  by  Frere. 


OLD  GREECE  IN  NEW  ATHENS   137 

journey  of  the  saint  "come  from  Cassarea,"  is  a  late  de- 
scendant of  the  ship  that  was  carried  in  the  Panathe- 
naic  procession,  the  origin  of  which  lay  in  Theseus's 
journey  to  Crete,  and  the  sail  of  which  was  Athena's 
own  peplos. 

With  Easter  come  the  most  elaborate  of  the  peasant 
dances  that  accompany  all  kinds  of  local  religious 
festivals.  Close  at  hand  are  the  famous  dances  of 
Megara,  but  in  defiance  of  tradition  the  Athenian  so- 
journer may  elect  to  visit  those  at  Menidi,  a  large  vil- 
lage about  three  miles  to  the  north,  whose  panegyris 
or  fair  is  not  overrun  by  non-participants.  There  are 
several  varieties  of  peasant  dances,  and  a  technical 
knowledge  of  the  accompanying  music  will  be  of  great 
service  in  interpreting  them ;  but  whatever  their  partic- 
ular measure  may  be,  and  whether  they  are  performed 
by  men  and  women  together  or  by  women  alone,  they 
all  possess  a  dignity  and  gravity  which  mark  them  ofiF 
as  something  quite  different  from  the  gratification  of 
a  lively  humour.  The  religious  impulse  is  not  wholly 
forgotten  in  the  delights  of  a  carnal  holiday,  and  the 
dances  are  the  expression,  in  unison,  of  a  public  feeling 
which  in  origin,  at  least,  was  reverential.  Save  for  the 
leader,  no  individual  assumes  liberty  of  movement. 
In  long  lines  or  semi-circles  the  dancers  link  hands  and 
sway  in  monotonous  harmony. 

Readers  of  ancient  Greek  literature  will  remember 
how  important  dances  were  in  the  religious  festivals 
of  all  epochs.   Their  variety  and  their  ancestral  rela- 


138   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

tion  to  the  modern  dances  are  subjects  for  technical 
study,  but  the  spectator  at  Menidi  is  at  liberty  to  let 
his  imagination  travel  the  Sacred  Way  to  Eleusis,  or 
cross  the  ^Egean  to  Delos,  or  seek  out  Argos  and  dis- 
tant Sparta.  The  modern  inheritance  is  a  limited  one, 
for  it  recalls  only  the  grave  choral  movements  that 
originated  in  Sparta,  and  discards  the  license  of  the 
Dionysiac  worship.  And  altogether  preventive  of  any 
real  reconstruction  of  the  past  is  the  fact  that  now  only 
peasants  at  a  country  fair  exhibit  an  art  which  once 
was  an  important  element  in  city  as  well  as  in  village 
religion,  and  which  tested  the  grace  of  the  gentlest  born. 
It  is  a  far  call  from  a  country  field  and  the  daughters 
of  Menidi,  bedight  though  they  are  with  embroideries 
and  necklaces  and  often  fair  of  form  and  face,  to  the 
chief  temple  in  Sparta  and  the  choicest  maidens  of  the 
Spartan  state.  But  one  certain  bond  there  is  between 
the  girls  of  to-day  and  the  princesses  of  yesterday.  The 
Easter  fair  serves  the  purpose  of  a  market  for  brides, 
and  many  a  wedding  follows  it.  Dancing  is  a  part  of 
this  happy  festival  as  it  was  in  antiquity  in  all  ranks 
of  society.  And  were  the  maidens  of  Menidi  exiled 
to  America,  they  would  long  for  the  village  green  and 
the  bridal  feasts,  even  as  Iphigeneia  and  her  comrades, 
exiled  among  the  northern  Taurians,  longed  for  Aga- 
memnon's palace  and  their  Argive  playfellows :  — 

"And  it 's  O!  that  I  could  soar  down  the  splendour-litten  floor 
Where  the  sun  drives  the  chariot  steeds  of  light. 
And  it 's  O !  that  I  were  come  o'er  the  chambers  of  my  home, 
And  were  folding  the  swift  pinions  of  my  flight. 


OLD  GREECE  IN  NEW  ATHENS   139 

And  that,  where  at  royal  wedding  the  bridesmaids*  feet  are  treading 
Through  the  measure,  I  were  gliding  in  the  dance; 

Through  its  maze  of  circles  sweeping. 

With  mine  older  playmates  keeping 
Truest  time  with  waving  arms  and  feet  that  glance. 

And  it 's  O !  for  the  loving  rivalry. 

For  the  sweet  forms  costly  arrayed, 
For  the  raiment  of  cunningest  broidery, 

For  the  challenge  of  maid  to  maid. 

For  the  veil  light  tossing,  the  loose  curl  crossing 

My  cheek  with  its  flicker  of  shade."  * 

Athens,  like  most  southern  cities,  impresses  an  Anglo-  \ 
Saxon  as  having  many  holidays  which  "interrupt  busi-  ^ 
ness" ;  but  only  during  the  New  Year  and  Easter  festi- 
vals can  he  begin  to  imagine  a  resemblance  to  the  civic 
life  of  ancient  Athens,  which  was  almost  a  continuous 
pageant.  "The  gods,"  said  Plato,  "in  pity  for  the  life 
of  toil,  man's  natural  inheritance,  appointed  holy  festi- 
vals whereby  men  alternate  their  labour  with  rest." 
But  at  certain  seasons,  especially  ii\  the  spring  and 
autumn,  the  festivals  were  so  congested  that  the  days 
of  labour  must  have  been  far  from  burdensome.  Al- 
most all  the  festivals  had  a  religious  origin,  celebrating 
deities  and  heroes  of  political  importance,  like  Athena 
or  Theseus,  or  forces  of  nature  embodied  in  Dionysus 
or  Demeter.  But,  Hke  Christmas,  they  gave  abundant 
opportunity  both  for  public  enjoyment  and  for  the  cul- 
tivation of  communal  and  family  sentiment.  Sophocles 
had  in  mind  all  their  human  charm  when  he  made  the 

*  Euripides,  Iphigeneia  among  the  Taurians,  1137.  Paraphrased 
by  Way. 


I40   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

blind  (Edipus  lament  the  future  of  his  little  daugh- 
ters:— 

For  to  what  gath'rings  of  your  townsfolk  shall  you  come, 
Or  to  what  festivals  from  whence  you  shall  not  turn 
Back  homeward  bathed  in  tears,  instead  of  any  share 
In  all  the  holiday? 

The  festivals  were  often  connected  with  the  activi- 
ties of  country  folk,  with  planting  and  reaping,  the  vint- 
age and  the  winepress,  and  yet  at  the  same  time  played 
an  important  part  in  a  highly  cultivated  city  life.  Some 
of  them  were  confined  to  women,  like  the  Thesmopho- 
ria,  celebrated  by  matrons  in  honour  of  Demeter,  the 
patroness  of  fruitful  marriages,  and  used  by  Aristo- 
phanes as  occasion  and  stage-setting  for  an  attack  on 
the  misogyny  of  Euripides ;  or  like  the  Tauropolia,  in 
honour  of  Artemis,  which  suggested  to  Menander  a 
lover's  opportunity.  Others,  such  as  the  Hermaea,  at 
which  Socrates  first  met  the  young  Lysis  and  discoursed 
on  friendship,  were  celebrated  by  young  men  at  the  pa- 
laestras,  or  by  school-boys.  The  "  Mean  Man"  of  Theo- 
phrastus  was  "  apt  not  to  send  his  children  to  school 
when  there  was  a  festival  of  the  Muses,  but  to  say  that 
they  were  sick,  in  order  that  they  might  not  contribute." 
Still  others,  like  the  Panathenaea,  which  occurred  in 
July,  the  first  month  of  the  calendar  year,  united  all 
classes  and  ages  in  a  magnificent  display  of  civic  loyalty. 
Public  taste  at  its  highest  made  the  presentation  of 
plays  the  chief  element  in  the  Greater  Dionysia  in 
March,  but  the  drama  had  originated  in  the  December 


OLD  GREECE  IN  NEW  ATHENS   141 

festival  of  the  country  Dionysia,  which  continued  to  be 
celebrated  with  a  jollity  and  abandon  that  probably 
lost  nothing  in  the  descriptions  of  Aristophanes.  The 
same  poet  also  found  plenty  of  material  to  his  liking 
in  the  Anthesteria,  another  Dionysiac  celebration,  in 
which  Pots  and  Pitchers  figured  in  drinking  competi- 
tions and  in  offerings  to  the  dead.  The  statue  of  Diony- 
sus in  the  Marshes  was  escorted  to  the  outer  Cera- 
meicus,  and  by  the  time  it  was  brought  back  again,  a 
day  later,  the  crowd  was  doubtless  in  the  state  described 
by  the  chorus  of  Frogs  in  the  underworld :  — 

"The  song  we  used  to  love  in  the  Marshland  up  above 
In  praise  of  Dionysus  to  produce, 
Of  Nyssean  Dionysus,  son  of  Zeus, 
When  the  revel  tipsy  throng,  all  crapulous  and  gay, 
To  our  precinct  reeled  along  on  the  holy  Pitcher  day. 
Brekekekex,  ko-ax  ko-ax."  * 

The  license  of  some  of  the  Dionysiac  holidays  was 
in  reality  a  break  in  the  even  tenor  of  Athenian  tem- 
perance. At  other  times  there  seems  to  have  been  little 
more  drunkenness  among  them  than  among  the  Spar- 
tans, whose  uninterrupted  self-,restraint  aroused  the 
admiration  of  Plato. 

From  the  crapulous  and  often  naked  verses  of  Aris- 
tophanes to  the  austerely  beautiful  marbles  of  Phidias 
is  a  gamut  that  includes  all  the  characteristics  of  ancient 
festivals,  in  their  appeal  to  both  the  natural  and  the 
spiritual  man.    Religious  sincerity,  civic  pride,  and 

*  Translated  by  Rogers. 


142    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

buffoonery,  jostled  one  another.  Music,  literature,  and 
athletics  added  discipline  and  beauty. 

These  things  as  a  coherent  whole  are  long  since  dead. 
The  Easter  festival  of  to-day,  like  the  Panathenaea, 
absorbs  the  entire  city  and  has  its  hours  of  gaiety  as 
well  as  its  hours  of  solemnity,  but  it  lacks  the  attendant 
contests  in  music,  poetry,  and  gymnastics.  If,  however, 
it  includes  less  of  a  citizen's  life  than  Athena's  festival, 
it  is  more  Panhellenic  than  even  the  Eleusinian  Mys- 
teries, its  prototype  in  religious  significance.  The  Mys- 
teries appealed  to  all  Greeks,  but  invited  them  to  gather 
at  one  spot.  Those  who  have  seen  Easter  ushered  in 
at  midnight  by  King  and  Metropolitan  in  front  of  the 
Cathedral  of  Athens,  and  who  have  also  shared  with 
peasant  and  parish  priest  in  the  announcement  within 
some  village  church  on  a  lone  island  of  the  ^Egean, 
realize  that  in  every  part  of  modern  Greece  as  never 
in  old  Greece  all  classes  and  conditions  of  men  are  at 
the  same  hour  engaged  in  a  common  observance. 

But  the  excited  crowds  that  fill  the  city  streets  and 
make  the  Cathedral  Square  look  like  a  deep  cornfield 
stirred  by  a  strong  west  wind,  and  the  gathering  of 
villagers  in  the  open  place  in  front  of  their  tiny  church 
aHke  betray  one  quality  that  is  no  more  Christian  and 
new  than  it  is  Pagan  and  old.  An  unquestioning  and 
swift  hospitality  to  strangers  is  as  much  in  evidence 
as  is  the  lighted  taper  borne  by  each  man,  woman, 
and  child.  In  Athens  this  is  but  a  proof  on  a  crucial 
occasion  of  a  temper  which  reveals  itself  in  response 


OLD  GREECE  IN  NEW  ATHENS      143 

to  every  need.  By  this  Ionic  grace,  inherited  from  the 
noble  civilization  of  Homer  and  eagerly  exemplified 
by  the  open-minded  Athenians  at  the  height  of  their 
prosperity,  the  foreigner  is  transported  back  to  the  old 
city  more  surely  than  by  the  street  names  and  signs  in 
the  alphabet  of  Xenophon,  or  even  than  by  the  vision, 
wherever  his  eye  turns,  of  the  ageless  rock  of  the 
Acropolis. 


'*^ 


CHAPTER  VII 

ATTICA 

The  country  of  Cecrops,  favoured  of  heroes,  rich  in  its  loveh'ness. 

Aristophanes,  Clouds. 

MODERN  Athens  climbs  up  around  the  lower 
slopes  of  Mount  Lycabettus,  which  rises  on 
the  east  like  an  index  finger  above  the 
Attic  plain.  Although  this  peak  is  less  than  one  thou- 
sand feet  high,  its  isolated  position  opens  out  an  un- 
rivalled panorama  of  the  Cephisian  plain  from  Parnes 
and  Pentelicus  down  to  Piraeus  and  the  bay,  with  Sala- 
mis,  the  mountains  of  the  Megarid,  the  Isthmus,  Argo- 
lis  and  ^Egina  beyond.  In  the  "  Frogs  "  of  Aristophanes 
iEschylus's  many-jointed  compounds  are  likened  to 
"great  Lycabettuses."  Athena,  it  is  said,  while  carry- 
ing Lycabettus  through  the  air  to  fortify  her  Acropolis, 
dropped  it  suddenly  in  its  present  exclusive  position ; 
but,  if  we  are  to  believe  Plato,  who  had  a  vague  ink- 
ling of  the  geologic  truth,  her  rival,  the  earth-shaker, 
rent  it  asunder  from  the  Acropolis,  with  which  it  was 
once  continuous.  From  Lycabettus,  it  would  appear, 
the  stream  of  the  Eridanus  made  its  way  north  of  the 
Acropolis  and  flowed  out  by  the  channel  now  laid  bare 
near  the  Dipylon  gate.  The  Ilissus,  rising  on  the  slopes 


iiommiiifiTiioiiTinr  iiiiMfiTfiofiiiTioiiiimii'fiii! 


^^>-V(?SM| 


ATTICA  145 

of  Hymettus,  flows  south  of  the  city  and,  first  uniting 
with  the  Eridanus,  joins,  between  Athens  and  Piraeus, 
the  Cephisus,  which  draws  its  waters  from  the  PenteU- 
cus  and  Parnes  ranges.  This  configuration  of  the  land- 
scape, with  arable  plain-land  watered  by  mountain 
streams,  was  the  important  factor  in  country  life  about 
Athens.  Clouds  on  Hymettus,  as  Theophrastus  tells 
us,  were  a  sign  of  rain.  The  altar  of  "  Shower-giving 
Zeus,"  whether  on  Hymettus  or,  as  Pausanias  says,  on 
Mount  Parnes,  would  have  no  lack  of  suppliants  in 
times  of  drought.  The  Clouds,  in  a  fragment  of  the 
lost  edition  of  Aristophanes' s  play,  vanish  adown  Lyca- 
bettus  and  go  off  to  the  top  of  Parnes.  In  the  play 
as  preserved,  the  mock  Socrates,  instructing  his  thick- 
headed scholar,  points  out  the  cloud-goddesses :  — 

Now  please  to  look  here  by  Parnes  anear,  now  I  see  they'll  be  gently 
descending. 

And  the  Clouds,  leaving  Boeotia  behind,  come  over 
Parnes,  showering  down  the  praises  that  Aristophanes 
delighted  to  bestow  on  the  Attic  country :  — 

Let  us,  maidens,  that  bring  fresh  showers,  go  unto  Pal- 
las's  brilliant  land  to  turn  our  eyes  on  the  country  of  Ce- 
crops,  favoured  of  heroes,  rich  in  its  loveliness,  there  where 
is  honour  to  consecrate  secrets;  there  where  the  temple  that 
welcomes  its  votaries  flings  wide  its  doors  at  the  mysteries 
sacred;  there  where  are  gifts  for  the  gods  up  in  heaven; 
stately-roofed  temples  and  statues  of  splendour;  there  are 
processionals  unto  the  blessed  ones,  hallowed  exceeding; 


146   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

fair  are  the  chaplets  entwining  the  offerings  unto  the  deities; 
ever  recurring  the  festivals,  season  by  season ;  and,  when 
the  spring  cometh  on,  there's  the  grace  of  the  Bromian  god 
and  incitements  to  choirs  melodious;  aye  and  the  Muse 
with  the  music  of  deep-voiced  flutings. 

Colonus,  the  birthplace  of  Sophocles,  lay  a  little 
more  than  a  mile  northwest  of  Athens.  The  hill  is  now 
disappointingly  bald.  Verdure  and  the  song  of  the 
nightingale  must  be  sought  by  the  banks  of  the  Cephi- 
sus  near  by,  but  the  famous  lines  of  Sophocles  retouch 
the  faded  picture.  The  chorus  of  old  men  of  Attica 
address  the  aged  CEdipus :  — 

Thou  'rt  come,  O  guest,  unto  the  fairest  of  earth's  dwell- 
ings in  this  land  that  hath  good  breed  of  horses  —  this  our 
white  Colonus,  where  the  clear-voiced  nightingale  from 
covert  of  green  dells  sends  out  her  oft-repeated  warblings 
murmurous  and  makes  her  dwelling  in  the  wine-dark  ivy 
or  the  god's  impenetrable  foliage  with  countless  fruitage 
laden;  where  the  sun's  rays  strike  not  nor  bloweth  any  wind 
of  all  the  blasts  of  winter;  where  Dionysus  ever  in  rapt 
frenzy  fares  along,  consorting  with  the  nymphs  that  nursed 
him  at  the  breast. 

And  fed  by  heaven's  dew,  day  in,  day  out,  blooms  the 
narcissus  clustering  fair  in  wreaths  from  days  of  yore  in- 
woven for  the  twain  Great  Goddesses;  blooms,  too,  the 
crocus  with  its  gleam  of  gold.  Nor  ever  fail  the  sleepless 
fountains  of  Cephisus  and  his  wandering  streams. 

The  ramparts  of  the  city  of  Theseus,  seen  by  Anti- 
gone at  the  opening  of  the  play,  are  for  Sophocles  in 


ATTICA  147 

reality  the  Acropolis  and  walls  of  his  own  day.   Anti- 
gone describes  the  sacred  grove  to  her  blind  father :  — 

This  place  is  sacred,  for  it  teems  with  laurel,  olive,  and 
the  vine.  Within  its  very  heart  a  multitude  of  feathered 
nightingales  make  music. 

The  venerable  olive  trees,  self  propagated  through 
generations  from  the  parent  stump,  are,  indeed,  a  feature 
in  the  Attic  landscape.  Sophocles  does  not  fail  to  in- 
clude them  in  his  catalogue  of  Attic  blessings :  — 

There 's  no  such  shoot  on  the  Asian  coast,  of  none  such  do 
I  hear  in  Doris  great,  in  Pelops-isle — a  plant  un vanquished, 
self-renewing,  terror  unto  foemen's  spears  —  nay,  none  like 
this,  child-nurturing,  that  groweth  greatest  in  our  land,  the 
gray-green  olive's  foliage. 

And  in  the  neighbouring  Academy  the  youths  ran 
off  their  races  beneath  the  sacred  olive  trees.  To  the 
joyous  associations  that  for  nearly  two  centuries  had 
been  accumulating  about  the  Academy  Plato  added  the 
overshadowing  greatness  of  his  own  name  and  teach- 
ing. He  has  incidentally  perpetuated  the  name  of  the 
original  modest  freeholder,  Academus,  to  be  a  part  of 
the  vocabulary  of  every  school- boy.  Near  the  Academy, 
making  a  fitting  goal  for  the  avenue  leading  from  the 
Dipylon  gate  between  the  monuments  of  illustrious 
dead,  the  Athenians  gave  Plato  magnificent  interment. 
An  epigram  by  Antipater  transfers  to  Plato  the  indif- 
ference expressed  by  Socrates  in  regard  to  his  unten- 
anted body  when  he  says  in  the  prison  death-scene: — 


148   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

"  Bury  me  however  you  will,  — if  you  can  catch  me 
—  for,  when  I  drink  the  poison,  I  shall  not  remain 
here  with  you,  but  shall  make  my  way  to  a  blissful 
life  with  the  Blessed.  ...  So  don't  let  Crito  be  vexed 
on  my  behalf  when  he  sees  my  body  being  burnt  or 
buried  as  though  I  were  having  some  awful  experi- 
ence." 

Shelley  in  his  fine  paraphrase  of  the  epigram  inex- 
actly substitutes  Athens  for  Attica  and  fails  to  include 
the  epithet  "earth-born,"  the  conventional  boast  of  the 
autochthonous  men  of  Attica :  — 

"Eagle!  why  soarest  thou  above  that  tomb? 
To  what  sublime  and  starry-paven  home 
Floatest  thou? 
*I  am  the  image  of  swift  Plato's  spirit 
Ascending  heaven :  —  Athens  doth  inherit 
His  corpse  below.'  " 

If  we  follow  up  the  Cephisus  towards  its  sources  we 
pass  through  the  ancient  deme  of  Acharnae  and  come 
on  the  north  to  Decelea  on  the  slopes  of  Mount  Parnes, 
or,  turning  to  the  right,  to  Kephisia  at  the  south  of 
Pentelicus,  also  called  Brilessus  by  the  ancients. 

Upon  the  Parnes  range,  on  the  northern  frontier  of 
Attica,  is  the  partially  ruined  fortress  of  Phyle.  Few 
places  offer  a  more  attractive  combination  of  scenery 
and  association.  There  is,  as  at  Delphi,  a  union  of  gran- 
deur and  beauty.  In  addition  to  the  view  that  awaits 
us  above,  the  ascent  amidst  trees  and  flowers  by  the  run- 
ning stream  makes  this  a  fitting  introduction  to  the  more 


ATTICA  149 

intimate  charm  of  Attic  landscape,  and  the  rugged 
gorges,  skirted  by  the  climbing  pathway,  are  even  awe- 
inspiring.  Once  within  the  massive  walls  and  towers, 
built  on  a  mountain  spur  commanding  the  junction  of 
ravines  and  passes  between  Attica  and  Boeotia,  no  ex- 
tended explanation  is  necessary  of  the  part  played  here 
(in 404  to  403  B.  c.)  during  the  civil  war  between  the  pa- 
triots and  the  Thirty  Tyrants.  Across  the  shoulder  of 
iEgaleus  the  plain  of  the  Cephisus  is  unrolled  to  view, 
with  Athens  lying  below  Hymettus.  In  the  background 
are  the  Saronic  Gulf  and  the  Peloponnesian  mountains. 
Thrasybulus,  the  hero  of  the  Restoration,  is  great  even 
among  the  great  names  of  Greek  history.  We  can  im- 
agine him  first  seizing  the  fortress  with  his  handful  of 
seventy  followers,  and  then,  through  months  of  waiting 
and  fighting  and  watching,  looking  down  on  the  desired 
city,  planning  how  he  shall  restore  the  exiled  patriots 
to  Athens,  and  Athens  to  herself.  We  can  picture  the 
fierce  snow-storm,  fiUing  those  wild  gorges,  which  aided 
in  driving  back  the  knights  and  hoplites  of  the  Thirty. 
Later  he  swoops  down  to  Acharnae,  surprises  and  routs 
the  unpatriotic  Athenians  together  with  the  Spartan 
garrison  which  the  Thirty,  to  their  dishonour,  had  ad- 
mitted to  the  AcropoHs.  Finally  he  descends  to  Piraeus, 
joins  battle  with  the  "City  Party,"  breaks  the  power 
of  the  Thirty  and  makes  the  name  of  "the  men  from 
Phyle"  a  symbol  of  patriotism  which,  see  it  where  we 
may  on  the  pages  of  Lysias  or  Xenophon,  claims  the 
eye  like  illuminated  initials  and  rubrics  of  honour. 


150   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

At  Chasia,  the  farming  village  of  the  foothills  whence 
the  path  ascends  to  Phyle,  women,  standing  in  their 
doorways  with  busy  distaff  in  hand,  or  energetic  but 
courteous  men,  ready  to  discuss  politics  or  crops,  recall 
the  simplicity  and  charm  of  country  life  of  hill  and 
plain  known  to  us  from^  Aristophanes  and  Menander. 

Acharnse  itself  must  have  occupied  the  district  be- 
tween Epano-Liossia,  the  nearest  railway  station  to 
Chasia,  and  the  charming  modern  village  of  Menidi 
whose  unspoiled  peasants,  close  to  the  outskirts  of 
Athens,  retain  many  a  reminder  of  the  country  demes- 
men.  The  charcoal-burners  of  Aristophanes  or  Me- 
nander would  now  be  compelled  to  go  further  up  the 
mountain  slopes  to  obtain  the  tree-stumps  for  their 
*'Parnesian  coals."  Nor  is  the  famous  ivy  of  Acharnae 
now  in  evidence.  The  Acharnians,  as  Pausanias  tells 
us,  called  Dionysus  *'Ivy"  because  the  ivy  plant  first 
appeared  on  their  soil.  In  the  Greek  Anthology  we 
learn  that  Sophocles  often  wore  a  wreath  of  Acharnian 
ivy,  and  in  an  epigram  of  Simmias  the  ivy  climbs  over 
his  tomb  which,  as  it  was  alleged,  had  its  place  in 
the  burying  ground  of  the  Sophocles  family  beside  the 
neigTibouring  road  to  Decelea :  — 

Gently,  ivy,  gently  twine, 

With  pale  tresses  creep  and  seize 

On  the  tomb  of  Sophocles ; 
Where  the  soft  and  clustering  vine 

Droops  its  tendrils  to  the  ground. 

Petals  of  the  rose,  around 


ATTICA  151 

Spread  your  fragrant  anodyne 

For  his  gracious  speech  profound, 
Muses  and  the  Graces  blending, 
Honeyed  charm  to  wisdom  lending. 

In  the  "  Acharnians  "  of  Aristophanes  the  demesman 
DicaeopoHs,  shut  up  in  the  city  by  the  war,  grows  tired 
of  hearing:  "Buy,  buy!"  when  he  would  have  "coals, 
vinegar  or  oil,"  commodities  to  be  had  for  nothing  at 
home  in  the  country.  He  therefore  makes  a  private  and 
personal  treaty  of  peace,  goes  back  to  Acharnae  and 
proceeds  to  celebrate  the  rural  Dinoysia.  The  revel  is 
on  and  the  wife  and  mother  warns  the  daughter,  who 
is  to  officiate  as  basket-bearer,  to  take  precautions,  — 

Lest  some  one  e»e  you  know  it  nibble  ofiF  your  gold. 

To-day  the  peasant  girls  of  Menidi  without  fear  dis- 
play on  their  persons  at  the  Easter  dances  their  abun- 
dant dowries  of  gold  and  silver.  As  the  Phallic  proces- 
sion moves  oflf,  Dicaeopolis  wisely  sends  his  pretty  wife 
to  a  place  of  safety:  — 

You,  wife,  up  with  you  to  the  roof  and  watch  from  there; 
And  you,  lead  on! 

At  this  juncture  the  chorus  of  Acharnian  men  rush 
in,  with  the  bosoms  of  their  gowns  full  of  stones,  indig- 
nant at  the  thought  of  peace  when  their  vines  have  been 
cut  by  the  enemy.  They  are  a  sturdy  lot.  They  had 
contributed  a  Highland  regiment  at  Marathon;  they 
are  regular  "old  Hickories,"  "  hardwood-charcoal  men, 
tough  as  oak,  hard-maple  men,"  and  they  are  ready 
to  stone  Dicaeopolis.    He  gains  time,  however,  for  a 


152   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

parley  by  seizing  for  a  hostage  a  basket  of  their  char- 
coals and  dressing  it  up  as  a  baby. 

Menander,  also,  in  his  recently  discovered  "Arbi- 
tration" scene,  gives  details  of  an  encounter  between 
a  shepherd  and  a  charcoal  man  somewhere  in  this 
Acharnae  district,  evidently  in  the  public  "  clearings  " 
lying  between  the  farm-lands  and  the  undisturbed  for- 
ests. The  shepherd  Daos  tells  a  well-to-do  property 
owner,  who  happens  by  and  is  selected  to  arbitrate  the 
dispute,  how,  — 

Within  this  bushy  thicket  here,  hard  by  this  place, 
My  flock  I  was  a-herding,  now,  perhaps,  good  sir, 
Some  thirty  days  gone  by,  and  I  was  all  alone, 
When  I  came  on  a  little  infant  child  exposed 
With  necklaces  and  some  such  other  trumpery. 

He  debates  whether  he  can  afford  to  save  and  rear 
the  child.  Next  morning,  still  perplexed,  "I  go,"  he 
says,  — 

back  unto  my  flock  again 
At  daybreak.    Comes  this  fellow  —  he's  a  charcoal-man  — 
Unto  this  self-same  place  to  cut  out  stumps  of  trees. 
Now  he  had  had  acquaintance  with  me  back  of  this, 
And  so  we  talked  together. 

One  of  the  main  sources  of  the  Cephisus  is  at  the 
foot  of  Pentelicus.  Here  the  village  of  Kephisia  with 
its  generous  spring  and  noble  plane  tree  still  retains 
its  charm  and  recalls  the  "Attic  Nights"  of  Aulus 
Gellius.  As  terminus  of  a  short  railway  from  Athens, 
it  is  a  convenient  starting- place  for  various  excursions 
in  Attica.    An  easy  drive  northward  across  the  plain 


MENANDER 


m 


ATTICA  153 

brings  one  to  Tatoi  where  King  George  has  his  sum- 
mer residence  at  the  ancient  Decelea,  which  the  Spar- 
tans occupied  in  the  Peloponnesian  War  to  cut  off  the 
grain  supply  and  to  harass  the  Attic  territory.  But 
cruel  memories  of  the  contest  with  Sparta  are  forgotten' 
amidst  the  unusual  charm  of  the  surroundings.  The 
magnificent  low-spreading  pine  trees  are  a  surprise  to 
many  visitors  unaccustomed  to  this  variety,  and,  as  one 
looks  southward,  Pentelicus,  usually  seen  from  Athens 
as  a  long  ridge,  confronts  the  spectator,  head  on,  with 
unfamiliar  and  uncompromising  majesty.  In  the  near 
foreground  olive  groves  and  luxuriant  fields  of  anemo- 
nes and  poppies  invite  to  a  long  lethe. 

The  Oropus  district  on  the  **Egripo,"  north  of  Par- 
nes,  belongs  geographically  to  Bceotia.  As  one  descends 
on  the  northern  side  of  the  mountain  the  view  is  more 
suggestive  of  Switzerland  than  of  rugged  Attica.  The 
fertile  plain  of  the  Asopus  is  green  and  wooded;  the 
"Egripo"  winding  between  the  hedgerows  of  moun- 
tains on  either  side  seems,  even  from  the  lofty  summit 
of  Pentelicus'  more  like  a  series  of  inland  lakes  than  a 
continuous  arm  of  the  sea ;  beyond,  the  dorsal  spine  of 
the  Delph,  gleaming  white  with  snow,  crowns  the  blue 
Euboean  mountains.  A  marble  relief,  found  at  the  port 
of  Oropus,  recalls  the  principal  literary  association  out- 
side of  the  shifting  scenes  in  military  history.  Amphi- 
araus,  the  seer  and  hero,  is  represented  in  his  chariot 
as  he  is  about  to  disappear  in  the  earth  and  his  horses 


154   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

start  back  from  the  yawning  chasm.  In  the  ^Eschy- 
lean  story  Amphiaraus  "the  one  just  man"  is  included 
against  his  will  among  the  invaders,  the  "  Seven  against 
Thebes,"  and  is  represented  as  falling  with  the  rest  at 
Thebes.  Of  him  were  written  the  famous  lines  which, 
when  spoken  in  the  Athenian  theatre,  turned  the  eyes 
of  all  the  spectators  upon  "  Aristides  the  Best" :  — 

'Now  as  for  me,  know  well,  I  shall  enrich  this  land, 
A  priest  entombed  deep  beneath  this  hostile  soil. 
Let's  fight.    No  death  dishonour  bringing  I  await.' 
Thus  spoke  the  seer  while  brandishing  his  good  round  shield 
Of  solid  bronze.   But  no  device  was  on  his  shield, 
For  not  to  seem  the  best  he  wishes,  but  to  be. 
While  harvesting  the  fertile  furrow  of  his  mind 
Wherefrom  an  honest  crop  of  counsels  springs  to  birth. 

Amphiaraus  was  deified  throughout  Greece,  but  he 
had  his  chief  sanctuary  near  Oropus  in  a  glen  where 
the  nightingales  sing  among  the  plane  trees  and  the 
oleanders.  Here  may  be  seen  the  remains  of  his  temple, 
as  god  of  healing;  the  great  altar;  the  sacred  spring  by 
the  plane  trees  where  the  grateful  convalescents  threw 
in  their  thanksgiving  coins.  Here  were  found,  in  the 
ruined  theatre,  five  gracefully  carved  chairs  of  honour, 
like  the  three  found  at  Rhamnus. 

Rhamnus  is  on  the  coast  near  the  southern  mouth 
of  the  "Egripo,"  and  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and 
secluded  places  in  the  whole  peninsula.  As  a  visit  to 
this  northeast  corner  is  needful  to  complete  the  physical 
outline  of  Attica,  so  the  contours  of  Greek  character 
will  be  sharpened  here  in  the  sanctuary  of  Nemesis, 


ATTICA  155 

the  dread  goddess  of  Retribution,  whose  warning  pre- 
sence hovered  continually  in  the  background  of  Greek 
consciousness.  Her  beautiful  statue,  made  perhaps  by 
Phidias  or  his  pupils,  was  fittingly  set  up  in  this  place 
near  the  mouth  of  the  channel  where  the  Persian  fleet 
had  sailed  through  to  the  crushing  rebuke  at  Marathon. 
Pausanias  calmly  states  that  this  statue,  dedicated  to 
"the  goddess  most  inexorable  of  all  towards  overween- 
ing men,"  was  made  by  Phidias  out  of  some  "Parian 
marble  which  the  Persians,  as  if  the  victory  were 
already  won,  carried  with  them  for  the  erection  of  a 
trophy.'*  If  we  could  credit  this  statement  it  would 
enlarge  the  itinerary  of  the  meagre  fragments  of  the 
colossal  statue  now  in  the  British  Museum. 

At  Rhamnus  are  to  be  seen  the  remains  of  two 
temples,  one  dedicated  to  Nemesis,  and  the  other 
probably  to  Themis,  the  mother  of  Prometheus,  and 
identified  by  iEschylus,  following  Attic  tradition,  with 
Mother  Earth  herself  —  "one  form  for  many  names." 
Situated  at  the  head  of  a  glen,  banked-up  by  a  marble 
terrace  and  shaded  by  myrtle,  green  fir  trees  and  shrub- 
bery, the  ruins  look  down  upon  the  marble  walls  and 
towers  of  the  ancient  acropolis  of  Rhamnus  occupying 
a  rocky,  self-fortified  hill  that  juts  out  into  the  channel. 
Beyond  the  channel  the  mountains  fill  in  the  back- 
ground. 

Unwary  speech,  insolent  success  or  immoderate, 
though  innocent,  good  fortune  might  call  down  the 
retribution  of  Nemesis.    Like  our  superstitious  for- 


156   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

mula,  "  Knock  on  wood,"  it  was  a  common  device  in 
Greek  to  deprecate  the  divine  envy  towards  arrogant 
speech,  by  saying :  "  I  being  but  human  make  obeisance 
to  Adrasteia,"  or,  the  equivalent,  "to  Nemesis."  Pin- 
dar describes  the  happy  Hyperboreans  as  set  free  from 
this  scrupulous  anxiety,  ever  present  to  mortal  men :  — 

And  for  that  sacred  race  nor  pestilence,  nor  deadening 
age  is  blended  in  their  lot.  Apart  from  war  and  toil  they 
dwell,  acquittal  winning  from  exacting  Nemesis. 

Near  the  cheerful  modern  village  of  Marathona  in 
the  valley  of  Avlona  above  the  plain  of  Marathon  are 
remains  of  an  ancient  gateway  to  the  villa  of  Herodes 
Atticus.  The  inscription  placed  over  his  portal  by  this 
beneficent  humanist  and  teacher  was:  "The  Gate  of 
Immortal  Unanimity."  A  few  miles  to  the  southwest, 
on  the  northern  slope  of  Pentelicus,  the  American  school 
excavated  on  an  upland  farm,  called  Dionyso,  the 
remains  of  the  ancient  Icaria,  the  earliest  Attic  home 
of  Dionysus  and  the  birthplace  of  Thespis,  the  father 
of  Attic  tragedy.  An  epigram  in  the  Anthology  by 
Dioscorides  records  the  claims  of  Thespis :  — 

Thespis  am  I,  who  the  tragedy  strain 

Shaped  for  the  masque  and  was  first  to  combine 
Charms  that  were  new  when  Bacchus  would  fain 

Marshal  his  chorus,  stained  with  wine. 
Figs  Attic  grown,  or  a  goat  was  the  prize 
Won  in  the  contests,  till  new  I  devise. 
They  that  come  after  all  this  will  revise, 

Myriad  years  reshape,  refine, 

Little  it  troubles  me  —  mine  are  mine. 


ATTICA  157 

Nothing  adventitious  is  needed  to  call  forth  a  certain 
solemn  elation  at  the  first  sight  of  the  plain  of  Mara- 
thon. But  the  sunlight  of  a  February  day,  when  the 
anemones  are  bright  by  the  wayside,  will  blend  an 
unforgettable  natural  beauty  with  the  suggestions  of  a 
great  moment  in  human  history.  The  level  plain  is 
hemmed  in  by  an  amphitheatre  of  mountains ;  the  pro- 
montory Cynosura  runs  down  like  a  natural  break- 
water from  the  north,  and  the  shore  curves  gracefully 
inward  as  if  enticing  seafarers  to  beach  their  galleys 
where  the  blue  water  breaks  in  soft  white  upon  the 
shining  sand.  When  we  climb  the  isolated  "soros,"  j 
the  great  mound  heaped  up  over  the  dead  warriors, 
and  pass  in  review  the  vivid  details  of  the  battle  as 
given  by  Herodotus,  there  emerges,  even  after  all  ex- 
aggeration has  been  neutralized  by  the  strictures  of 
some  modern  iconoclast,  a  grateful  and  redoubled 
admiration  for  the  unflinching  loyalty  to  liberty  dis- 
played by  the  individual  soldiers  and  even  more  for 
the  consummate  skill  of  the  commanders.  The  Athe- 
nians with  the  help  of  the  Plataeans  repelled  forever  the 
reestablishing  of  a  despot  in  Attica,  and  Athens  herself 
unconsciously  entered  upon  what  was  to  be  the  intel- 
lectual and  moral  trusteeship  of  Occidental  civiUzation. 
Demosthenes,  more  than  a  century  later,  amidst  the 
ruins  of  political  liberty,  could  foreshadow  a  destiny 
greater  than  material  success.  He  cites  the  great  words 
of  Simonides  that  had  drifted  down  from  Marathon 
and  could  be  used  with  pathetic  propriety  of  the  dead 


158   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

at  Chaeronea.  He  bids  his  fellow  citizens  bow,  if  need 
be,  under  the  strokes  of  unfeeling  fortune,  but  reject 
all  thought  of  having  erred  in  their  patriotic  struggle 
against  Macedon.  He  bursts  forth  with  that  impas- 
sioned oath  by  the  dead  heroes  that  thrills  each  genera- 
tion born  to  cherish,  or  to  long  for  liberty:  "It  cannot 
be,  it  cannot  be,  Athenians,  that  ye  erred  in  braving 
danger  on  behalf  of  freedom  and  the  safety  of  us  all. 
No,  by  those  of  our  fathers,  fore-fighters  in  the  battle's 
brunt  at  Marathon!  No,  by  those  who  stood  shoulder 
unto  shoulder  at  Plataea!  No,  by  those  who  fought 
the  naval  fights  at  Salamis  or  in  the  ships  off  Artemi- 
sium!" 

Marathon,  as  opening  the  great  contest  with  Persia, 
had  given  the  Athenians  the  proud  distinction  of  being 
champions  in  the  van  for  Hellas.  Simonides  had  so 
hailed  them:  — 

Athenians,  fore-fighters  for  the  Hellenes  all,  laid  low 
at  Marathon  the  power  of  the  gold-decked  Medes. 

Within  the  mound  beneath  our  feet  was  buried  with 
the  rest  Cynegirus  the  valiant  brother  of  iEschylus. 
The  poet  himself  fought  in  the  battle  and  lived  to  im- 
mortalize his  city  and  himself  by  his  Titanic  genius. 
But  in  far  off  Sicily,  when  his  death  approached,  ignor- 
ing his  fame  as  a  poet,  he  turned  with  eager  longing 
to  the  distant  day  and  plain  of  Marathon.  To  him  the 
battlefield  was  a  consecrated  close,  an  "  Alsos"  Hke  the 
Altis  of  Olympia.   Almost  as  if  envying  his  brother  and 


ATTICA  159 

other  companions-in-arms,  buried  on  the  battlefield 
in  their  native  land,  he  writes  as  his  own  epitaph:  — 

iEschylus,  son  of  Euphorion,  here  an  Athenian  lieth, 
Wheatfields  of  Gala  his  tomb  waving  around  and  above; 

Marathon's  glebe-land  could  tell  you  the  tale  of  his  valour  ap- 
proved, 
Aye  and  the  long-haired  Mede  knew  of  it,  knew  of  it  well. 

The  carriage  road  that  leads  back  to  Athens  around 
the  southern  end  of  Pentelicus  again  combines  beau- 
tiful landscape  with  historic  association.  By  this  road 
the  Persians  had  thought  to  move  with  unimpeded 
might  upon  unwalled  Athens.  Instead,  the  soldier 
Eucles*  (or  perhaps  Thersippus)  brought  the  swift 
news  to  the  rejoicing  city,  followed  soon  by  the 
Athenian  army,  who  marched  from  their  camp  by  the 
Marathonian  Heracleum  and  encamped  in  the  Cyno- 
sarges  gymnasium,  also  dedicated  to  Heracles,  south- 
west of  Athens.  Here  looking  down  upon  the  Saronic 
Gulf  they  were  ready  to  repel  the  great  host  of  Per- 
sia which  was  already  rounding  Sunium.  Games  in 
honour  of   Heracles  were  celebrated   at   Marathon, 

*  See  chapter  xviii,  p.  422.  This  incident,  not  given  by  Herodotus,-> 
is  recorded  by  Plutarch  {De  Gloria  Atheniensiunty  3),  who  says  that 
most  authorities  give  the  name  of  the  runner  as  Eucles  but  Hera- 
cleides  Ponticus  calls  him  Thersippus.  The  soldier,  as  he  tells  us, 
ran  the  twenty-six  miles  in  full  armour  and,  on  reaching  the  city,  with 
his  last  breath  exclaimed:  Xalpere  koI  xa/po/xej/,  "Fare  well!  we  are 
faring  well,"  or  —  the  double  meaning  is  elusive  —  "Greetings!  Re- 
joice, we  too  are  rejoicing!"  Browning  followed  Lucian's  later  ver- 
sion, which  is  apparently  a  contaminatio  with  the  story  of  Phidippides, 
the  courier  between  Sparta  and  Athens,  for  which  see  chapter  iii,  p.  72. 


i6o   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

and  Euripides,  in  his  "  Heracleidae,"  alludes,  though 
vaguely,  to  the  Marathonian  tetrapolis  as  one  of  the 
great  Attic  centres  of  the  worship  of  Heracles.  The 
Plataeans  by  their  presence  at  Marathon  won  the  last- 
ing and  active  friendship  of  Athens,  and  it  was  their 
city  that  gave  the  name  to  the  final  crushing  defeat  of 
the  Persians  under  the  combined  Greek  allies.  The 
Spartans,  detained  at  home  by  convenient  scruples 
until  the  full  moon  gave  them  the  signal  to  start, 
arrived  at  Athens  too  late  for  the  battle  of  Marathon, 
but,  as  Herodotus  charmingly  remarks,  "they  none  the 
less  wished  to  take  a  look  at  the  Medes  and,  going 
out  to  Marathon,  they  had  a  look." 

On  the  east  coast  of  Attica,  between  Marathon  and 
Sunium,  are  Brauron,  "lovely"  Prasiae,  and  Thori- 
cus.  These  with  Markopoulo  and  other  sites  in  the 
southern  inland  plain,  Mesogia,  have  been  yielding  a 
wealth  of  prehistoric  remains  that  fill  out  more  and 
more  the  dim  background  of  antiquity.  Thoricus,  a 
bay  some  six  miles  north  of  Sunium,  was  the  birthplace 
of  Philonis,  "the  daughter  of  the  morning  star,"  and 
grandmother  of  Thamyris,  the  Thracian  bard  who 
dared  to  contend  with  the  Muses.  The  inhabitants  were 
not  unmindful  of  their  traditions  and  built  a  theatre, 
unique  by  reason  of  its  oval  orchestra.  It  is  in  ruins, 
but  the  absence  of  all  traces  of  a  stage  seem  to  date  it 
as  of  the  best  classic  period.  Laurium,  just  below,  is  the 
terminus  of  the  railroad,  its  silver  mines,  now  worked 


ATTICA  i6i 

chiefly  for  lead,  play  an  important  r61e  in  Greek  his- 
tory. The  chorus  in  the  *' Persians"  of  .-Eschylus  ex- 
plains to  Queen  Atossa  that  the  source  of  the  Athenian 
sinews  of  war  is  — 

A  fountain  running  silver,  treasure  of  the  land. 

The  standard  coins  of  Athens,  of  various  denomina- 
tions, stamped  with  an  archaic  Athena  head  on  the 
obverse  and  the  owl  on  the  reverse,  are  referred  to  in 
the  "  Birds  "  of  Aristophanes  as  Lauriot  owls :  — 

"  First,  what  every  Judge  amongst  you  most  of  all  desires  to  win, 
Little  Lauriotic  owlets  shall  be  always  flocking  in. 
Ye  shall  find  them  all  about  you,  as  the  dainty  brood  increases. 
Building  nests  within  your  purses,  hatching  little  silver  pieces."  * 

When  the  Spartans  occupied  Attica  in  413  b.  c,  they 
cut  off  Athenian  access  to  the  mines,  and  Plutarch 
tells  us  how  a  slave  described  a  hoard  of  Athenian 
money  secreted  by  the  Spartan  Gylippus  under  his 
roof- tiles  as  "numerous  owls  roosting  under  his  Cera- 
meicus." 

The  promontory  of  Sunium,  the  prow  of  Attica, 
breasts  the  iEgean,  and  the  white  temple  columns,  beau- 
tiful in  their  ruin,  stand  up  boldly  like  the  Samothra- 
cian  Nike  upon  an  advancing  trireme.  The  view  from 
the  precipitous  bluff  is  one  of  surpassing  beauty,  with 
the  glistening  white  of  the  marble  against  the  nearer 
foreground  of  green  and  against  the  blue  of  the  over- 
arching sky  and  of  the  wide  expanse  of  water.  The  eye 

*  Translated  by  Rogers. 


i62   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

sweeps  from  ^Egina  to  the  opposite  shore  of  Argolis 
and  around  to  the  "glittering  Cyclades"  scattered 
over  the  ^gean,  while  far  to  the  south,  seventy  miles 
away,  Mount  St.  EKas  on  Melos  in  clear  weather  lifts 
its  lofty  cone  into  view,  the  outline  of  the  island  being 
sunk,  like  a  vessel's  hull,  below  the  horizon.  On  the 
Acropolis  at  Athens  was  preserved  the  memory  of  the 
contest  between  Athena  and  Poseidon,  and  at  Sunium 
each  of  these  divinities  had  a  temple.  Poseidon  has 
here  retained  the  supremacy,  as  was  fitting,  and  only 
the  foundation  walls  remain  of  Athena's  temple  on  the 
lower  terrace.  The  Athenians  dedicated  at  Sunium 
to  Poseidon  one  of  the  triremes  captured  at  Salamis, 
and  here,  on  occasion  of  the  quadrennial  festival  held 
in  honour  of  the  sea-god,  the  ^ginetans  seized  the 
festal  galley  full  of  Athenian  dignitaries.  A  defendant, 
in  one  of  Lysias's  speeches,  tells  how  he  had  "won  in 
the  trireme  race  off  Sunium,"  which  was  part  of  the 
panegyris.  In  Aristophanes  the  chorus  of  Knights  cry 
out  to  "  Poseidon,  lord  of  horses,  rejoicing  in  the  bronze- 
shod  hoof-beats  and  the  neigh  of  steeds  and  swift  blue 
prows  of  triremes,"  — 

Come  hither  to  our  chorus, 
Raise  thy  golden  trident  for  us, 

Thee  at  Sunium  we  praise 

Whom  the  dolphin  band  obeys. 

To  catalogue  the  ships,  famous  in  Greek  story,  that 
have  sighted  or  rounded  this  headland  would  cause 
to  pass  in  review  a  mighty  and  a  motley  fleet.  Nestor 


ATTICA  163 

tells  Telemachus  how,  sailing  home  with  Menelaus 
from  Troy,  they  lost  their  pilot,  — 

When  that  we  came  unto  Sunium  sacred,  the  headland  of  Athens. 

And  Sophocles's  chorus  of  Salaminian  sailors  long  in 
Troyland  for  their  native  shores :  — 

O  there  I  would  I  might  be, 

Where  Sunium's  spreading  foreland 

Hangs  over  the  surge  of  the  sea, 

That  straightway  our  Athens,  the  holy, 

Might  be  greeted  and  hailed  by  me. 

Vessels  of  commerce  or  war  would  double  it,  bound 
from  Athens  to  the  ^Egean  or  to  Ionia,  and  grain  trans- 
ports sailing  to  Athens  from  the  Euxine.  The  Persian 
warships  backing  out  from  the  inhospitable  bay  of 
Marathon  ''sailed  around  Sunium,  making  haste  to 
anticipate  the  Athenians  in  arriving  at  the  city."  The 
vessel  of  Theseus  sailed  past  it  bringing  back  safe  from 
Crete  the  Athenian  youths  and  maidens,  and,  in  after 
days,  the  look-out,  posted  at  Sunium,  hastened  back 
to  Athens  to  say. that  the  mission-ship  from  Delos  had 
been  sighted  and  was  beating  its  way  up  the  Saronic 
gulf  to  put  an  end,  on  its  arrival,  at  once  to  the  sacred 
hoUday  and  to  the  life  of  Socrates. 

On  the  west  coast  of  Attica  the  place  of  chief  in- 
terest, in  connection  with  Greek  letters,  is  Vari,  near 
the  promontory  of  Zoster,  where  Mount  Hymettus 
comes  down  to  the  sea.  Herodotus  tells  us  that  the 
frightened  Persians,  escaping  from  Salamis,  thought 


i64   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

that  the  long  rocks  running  out  at  Zoster  were  some 
more  hostile  ships  and  "went  fleeing  for  a  long  dis- 
tance" until  they  recognised  their  mistake.  Some  little 
distance  inland  on  the  side  of  Hymettus,  back  of  the 
town  of  Vari,  is  a  grotto  dedicated  to  the  Nymphs  and 
also  sacred  to  the  Graces,  to  Pan,  and  to  Apollo.  There 
is  a  tradition  that  the  infant  Plato  was  taken  to  Hymet- 
tus by  his  parents,  who  there  sacrificed  on  his  behalf 
to  Pan,  the  Nymphs  and  Apollo. 

The  straits  which  interrupt  the  continuity  of  Mount 
JEgaleus  with  Salamis  could  not  avail  to  dissever 
the  island  from  Attica.  The  northwestern  promontory, 
indeed,  comes  even  closer  to  the  out  jutting  Nisaean 
peninsula  of  the  Megarid,  and  it  was  inevitable  that 
Megara  and  Athens  should  contend  for  this  "island 
of  desire."  The  energy  of  Solon  at  the  beginning  of 
the  sixth  century  adjudicated  the  dispute  with  finality, 
and  Salamis  was  permanently  incorporated  as  an  es- 
sential part  of  Attica.  To  a  seafaring  folk  triremes 
and  sailing  craft  could  annul  the  interrupting  sea, 
and  the  mainland  and  island  were  still  more  firmly 
cemented  by  the  blood  of  Persian  and  Greek  at  the 
great  sea-fight. 

The  ancestral  hero  of  Salamis  was  Aias  ("Ajax"), 
the  son  of  Telamon.  Pausanias  saw  a  stone  near  the 
harbour  upon  which  Telamon  sat,  as  it  was  said,  look- 
ing after  his  children  departing  to  join  the  Greek  fleet 
at  Aulis.  When  Aias  fell  upon  his  sword  before  Troy 


ATTICA  165 

the  hyacinth,  according  to  the  usual  tale,  sprang  up 
inscribed  with  the  exclamation  of  woe  "Ai!  ai!"  the 
first  syllable  of  his  name.  But,  as  Pausanias  would 
have  it,  a  local  flower,  different  from  the  hyacinth, 
made  its  appearance  in  Salamis  inscribed  with  the 
same  letters.  Ajax,  as  was  to  be  expected,  appeared 
and  offered  divine  aid  to  the  Greeks  at  the  battle  of 
Salamis.  In  his  honour  the  "Aianteia"  festival  was 
celebrated,  and  the  young  Athenian  ephebi  used  to 
go  over  annually  to  contend  at  Salamis  in  friendly 
rivalry  with  the  Salaminian  youth  in  foot-races  and  in 
boat-races,  resembling  those  rowed  from  Munychia  to 
the  Cantharus  harbour  in  Piraeus.  In  addition  to  the 
Ajax  traditions,  here,  as  elsewhere,  other  sagas  were 
invented  or  reshaped  to  give  personification  to  the  re- 
mote past  and  to  be  handed  down  to  satisfy  the  pride 
of  succeeding  generations.  Solon  was  a  more  tangible 
memory,  and  Demosthenes,  in  speaking  of  his  statue 
standing  in  the  market-place  of  Salamis,  quotes  the 
Salaminians  as  saying:  "This  statue  was  set  up  not 
yet  fifty  years  ago." 

But  the  dominant  memory  evoked  by  the  name  of 
Salamis  is,  naturally,  the  defeat  of  the  Persians  in  the 
narrow  straits.  For  the  Athenians  everything  was  at 
stake.  The  wives  and  children  who  had  not  been  sent 
to  the  Peloponnesus  were  on  the  island.  Euripides, 
according  to  an  enticing  tradition,  was  born  there 
at  the  time  of  the  battle.  Xerxes  sat  on  his  throne  on 
the  mainland  to  overawe  disaffection  and  to  watch  the 


i66   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

spectacle.  He  had  no  doubt  as  to  the  outcome.  His 
fleet  was  numerous  enough  to  allow  him  to  detach  the 
Egyptian  squadron  for  guarding  the  narrow  exit  of 
the  northwest  channel  and  still  to  leave  more  ships 
than  could  be  used  for  closing  in  the  eastern  approaches. 
The  Greeks  were  thus  hemmed  in,  and  the  unwilling 
allies  from  the  Peloponnesus  were  forced  to  remain  and 
give  battle  instead  of  withdrawing  to  the  Isthmus.  The- 
mistocles,  the  great  admiral,  had  his  will. 

To-day,  if  one  sails  in  a  small  boat  across  from 
Piraeus  to  the  harbour  of  the  modern  Ambelaki,  the 
details  of  the  battle  as  narrated  by  ^Eschylus  and 
Herodotus  explain  themselves.  The  long,  bare  reef  of 
Psyttaleia  cumbers  the  entrance  to  the  channel.  The 
messenger, in  the  '^ Persians" of  ^Eschylus, in  describing 
to  the  Queen  Mother  the  scene  enacted  on  this  tiny 
island,  introduces  Pan,  the  old  ally  at  Marathon :  — 

An  island  lies  before  the  shores  of  Salamis; 

'T  is  small,  for  ships  a  risky  mooring,  but  its  reef, 

Sea-swept,  dance-loving  Pan  frequents. 

Here  Xerxes  stationed  a  picked  body  of  Persians  to 
save  their  friends  and  to  slay  the  Greeks  escaping  from 
the  wreckage,  which,  it  was  plain  to  foresee,  would 
come  bearing  down  upon  the  reef. 

Beyond  Psyttaleia  and  overlapping  it  is  the  long  spit 
of  land  Cynosura  ("Dog's-tail"),  like  in  name  and 
shape  to  the  promontory  at  Marathon.  The  result  of 
the  contest  in  this  narrow  channel  is  not  so  surprising 
as  is  the  foresight  of  Themistocles  and  the  courage  of 


ATTICA  167 

the  Greeks  in  availing  themselves  with  irresistible  dar- 
ing of  the  overconfidence  of  Xerxes.  ^Eschylus's  account 
betrays  the  vivid  memories  of  an  actual  eye-witness. 
The  vessels  took  position  by  night.  Across  the  deso- 
lated plain  of  Attica  the  new  Day,  "by  white  steeds 
drawn,  her  radiance  fair  to  see,  held  all  the  land."  To 
the  astonishment  of  the  Persians,  the  Greeks,  instead 
of  fleeing,  raised  high  their  shout  of  happy  omen,  and 
Echo,  mate  of  dance-loving  Pan,  '*  back  from  the  island 
rock  returned  a  shrill  and  pealing  cry  of  joy."  The 
Persian  messenger  continues :  — 

Fell  fear  on  all  of  us  barbarians,  deceived 

In  expectation.    For  the  Greeks  a  noble  hymn 

Were  singing,  not  as  though  in  flight,  but  like  to  men 

Starting  for  battle  with  courageous  heart.   And  then 

The  trumpet's  blare  set  all  of  them  aflame.   Therewith 

The  even  dash  of  oar-blades,  at  the  word,  bit  deep 

The  brine  and  quickly  all  of  them  were  visible. 

The  right  wing  in  good  order  first  led  forth,  and  next 

Came  out  and  on  the  armament  entire.   Aye  then, 

As  they  came  onward,  loud  the  cry  that  reached  our  ears: 

' Sons  of  the  Hellenes !    On!   Set  free  your  native  land! 

Your  children  free,  your  wives,  ancestral  shrines  of  gods 

And  tombs  of  fathers'  fathers !  Now  for  all  we  strive ! ' 

The  "jargon"  of  the  Persian  host  rolled  back  reply. 
A  Greek  ship  was  the  first  to  grapple.  Bronze  beak 
smote  beak.   Triremes  turned  keel  uppermost,  — 

Until  the  water  was  no  longer  to  be  seen. 

With  wreckage  of  slain  men  and  splintered  vessels  packed. 

The  corpses  beached.   They  filled  the  ridges  and  the  shores. 

Whether  dead  or  alive  the  Persians  found  no  refuge 
upon  land.    Aristides  with  his  men,  instead  of  the 


i68   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

picked  Persians,  was  now  on  Psyttaleia  to  save  or  to 
destroy.  The  chorus  of  Persian  elders,  as  they  hear 
the  news,  imagine  their  dead  now  floating  with  the  tide, 
now,  like  struggling  swimmers,  rising  to  the  waves. 
The  leader  cries :  — 

Woe,  woe  is  me! 

Our  dear  ones  lost, 

By  the  sea's  swell  tossed 

Their  bodies,  borne  along  the  main. 

Rise  and  dip,  and  rise  again! 

It  was  not  unnatural  that  the  ineffaceable  memory 
of  the  sea  covered  with  wreckage  and  the  dead  should 
reappear,  when  iEschylus,  in  the  "Agamemnon,"  de- 
scribes the  morning  after  the  storm  that  wrecked  the 
ships  returning  from  Troy:  — 

When  rose  the  brilliant  light  of  Helios,  we  see 
Th'  ^gean,  spread  out  far  and  wide,  a-blossoming 
With  wrecks  of  ships  and  corpses  of  Achaean  men. 

Apart  from  the  details  of  the  battle,  the  "Persians" 
is  noticeable  for  the  method  by  which  the  poet  intro- 
duces his  ethical  lesson.  The  ghost  of  the  great  Darius 
suddenly  appears  in  the  orchestra  and  attributes  the 
defeat  of  Xerxes  to  his  presumption  in  fettering  "like 
a  slave"  the  "sacred"  Hellespont,  ^schylus  reiter- 
ates his  favourite  doctrine :  "  When  Insolence  puts  forth 
the  bloom  of  Ate,  the  harvest  reaped  is  one  of  many 
tears."  And  when  later  Xerxes  himself  arrives,  the 
chorus  with  un-oriental  frankness  says:  "Xerxes  has 
packed  Hades  full  with  Persians." 

The  "Persae"  of  Timotheus,  a  sensational  find  of 


ATTICA  169 

the  year  1902,  with  its  fantastic  and  overloaded  epi- 
thets and  the  half-comic  scene  of  the  drowning  Persian 
spitting  out  bitter  brine  and  reproaches  together,  is  a 
curious  scholium  upon  ^Eschylus's  poem.  The  de- 
scription of  the  dead  upon  the  sea  is  thus  retouched :  — 
Choked  was  the  sea,  star-spangled  with  the  corpses  reft 
of  souls  departing  with  the  failing  breath.  The  beaches 
were  weighed  down.  Other  some  upon  the  jutting  spits  of 
land  were  seated  all  a-shiver  in  their  nakedness. 

The  love  of  free  men  for  a  free  country  saved  Attica. 
Euripides,  despite  the  devastation  of  the  country, 
might  well  call  his  land  "unsacked,"  "inviolate."  It 
was  true  of  the  unyielding  citizens  who,  whether  upon 
the  mainland  or  self- exiled  upon  their  triremes,  refused 
all  dealings  with  the  despot.  Plutarch  tells  us  that 
Xerxes  after  Salamis  sought  to  detach  the  Athenians 
from  the  national  cause  by  promises  of  liberty  and 
riches  for  themselves.  The  Lacedaemonians,  fearing 
lest  they  might  yield  to  the  royal  bribery,  attempted 
to  remonstrate,  but  Aristides  bade  the  ambassadors 
say  at  Sparta:  "Neither  above  ground  nor  below  is 
there  enough  gold  for  the  Athenians  to  accept  in  pre- 
ference to  the  liberty  of  the  Hellenes." 

It  may  be  that  the  visitor  to  Salamis,  as  his  little 
craft  scuds  swiftly  home  past  Cynosura  and  Psyttaleia, 
sees  the  dark  clouds,  from  which  but  now  came  rain, 
roll  off  towards  Eleusis,  while  Attica,  the  islands,  and 
the  western  mountains  merge  once  more  in  the  accus- 
tomed beauty  of  the  translucent  atmosphere.  He  may, 


I70   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

perhaps,  harbour  the  thought  that  under  such  a  sky, 
when  the  war-clouds  had  finally  withdrawn,  the  demes- 
men  of  country  and  of  town  came  back  to  their  devas- 
tated but  ransomed  Attica. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


ELEUSIS 


That  torch-lit  strand  whereon  the  Goddesses  revered  foster 
mystic  rites  and  dread  for  mortal  men  whose  lips  the  ministrant 
Eumolpidae  have  locked  in  golden  silence. 

Sophocles,  (Edipus  Colonieus, 

Go  thou  to  Attica, 
Fail  not  to  see  those  great  nights  of  Demeter, 

Mystical,  holy. 
There  thou  shalt  win  thee  a  mind  that  is  care-free 

Even  while  living, 
And  when  thou  joinest  that  major  assembly 

Light  shall  thy  heart  be. 

Crinagoras,  Greek  Anthology, 

ELEUSIS,  like  Delphi,  was  a  centre  of  Greek  relig- 
ious life,  but  its  Panhellenism  was  of  a  later  date 
and  a  direct  consequence  of  the  power  of  Athens 
within  whose  territory  it  lay.  Although  the  worship 
of  nature's  productivity,  under  the  form  of  Demeter 
losing  her  daughter  Persephone  within  the  earth  and 
recovering  her  again,  was  indigenous  among  the  early 
Pelasgic  dwellers  in  Eleusis,  and  although  upon  this 
native  cult  were  grafted  religious  beliefs  and  practices 
imported  from  Thrace,  it  is  yet  true  that  the  Eleusinian 
Mysteries  waxed  famous  only  as  Athens  waxed  great. 
Once  established  by  the  most  powerful  city  of  Greece 
as  its  highest  expression  of  religious  feeling,  they  drew 


172    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

to  their  modest  birthplace  in  the  recurring  Septembers 
of  many  centuries  the  pious  and  the  curious  from  all 
Greek  lands.  The  right  of  initiation,  originally  open 
only  to  citizens  of  Attica,  was  extended  to  all  Greeks 
and  later  to  their  Roman  conquerors.  In  this  repudia- 
tion of  "barbarians"  Eleusis  resembled  Olympia 
rather  than  Delphi,  where  Persian  or  Scyth  or  African 
might  consult  Apollo. 

But  these  three  centres  of  Panhellenic  life  alike  pre- 
sent a  history  which  begins  in  the  dim  age  of  mythol- 
ogy and  ends,  several  centuries  after  the  beginning  of 
our  era,  in  the  final  clash  of  Christianity  with  Pagan- 
ism. Perhaps  the  history  of  Eleusis  best  deserves  the 
name  of  "sacred."  Playing  no  appreciable  part  in 
secular  events,  the  town  was  repeatedly  the  scene  of 
religious  events  which  were,  of  unequalled  spiritual 
importance.  Here  an  early  nature  cult,  sister  to  savage 
rites  in  many  parts  of  the  world,  became  not  only  a 
beautified  worship  of  the  physical  universe  but  also 
an  expression  of  a  hope  in  immortality.  "The  fable  of 
Kore  (the  Daughter)  is  as  much  the  image  of  the  destiny 
of  man  after  death  as  it  is  that  of  the  reproduction  of 
vegetative  life  by  means  of  the  seed  committed  to  the 
earth."* 

Except  for  the  proximity  of  Eleusis  to  Athens  there 
was  nothing  in  the  physical  qualities  of  the  town  to 
make  the  Eleusinian  mysteries  greater  than  any  others. 

*  See  articles  by  Frangois  Lenormant  in  the  Contemporary  Review^ 
1880. 


ELEUSIS  173 

Its  loveliness  befitted  rather  than  promoted  the  worship 
of  the  Earth  Goddesses.  Their  story  clung  also  to 
the  seaward  looking  ledges  of  "steep  Cnidos,"  where 
was  found  the  noble  statue  of  Demeter  that  is  now  in 
the  British  Museum,  and  to  the  blossoming  fields  of 
SiciHan  Enna.  The  Corn-Mother  had  her  shrines  on 
Boeotian  farms  and  in  the  mountain  caverns  of  Arcadia, 
and  in  more  than  one  locality  her  worship  was  as  mys- 
terious and  secret  as  the  processes  of  nature.  And  yet 
the  religious  genius  of  Athens  could  have  had  no  more 
exquisite  stage  than  Eleusis  for  its  larger  operations. 
Sheltered  by  hills,  washed  by  the  sea  and  command 
ing  a  goodly  plain,  it  is  still,  even  in  its  poverty,  one 
of  the  fairest  places  in  Greece.  The  Thriasian  plain, 
in  the  southwestern  portion  t)f  which,  on  a  low  hill,  lies 
the  town,  is  separated  from  the  plain  of  Athens  by  the 
long  ridge  of  Mount  iEgaleus  and  from  the  plain  of 
Megara  by  the  chain  of  hills  that  ends  in  the  twin  peaks 
of  the  Kerata,  or  ''  Horns,"  familiar  objects  in  the  west- 
ward view  from  the  Acropolis  of  Athens.  The  moun- 
tains of  Salamis  also  seem  to  contribute  to  the  girdling 
of  Eleusis,  so  near  do  they  rise  across  the  curving  and 
almost  landlocked  bay.  Empurpled  by  shadows,  the 
mountains  and  the  sea  are  like  the  deep  blue  robe  of 
the  mourning  Demeter.  Subdued  to  the  delicate  and 
luminous  tint  of  the  sky  they  seem  like  the  veil  within 
whose  folds  gleamed  the  cornlike  yellow  of  her  hair. 
Near  the  sea,  close  around  Eleusis,  there  are  still  fertile 
grain  fields  to  recall  that  — 


174   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Here  first  the  fruitful  corn  upreared  its  bristling  ears. 

The  historical  development  of  the  Eleusinian  mys- 
teries naturally  followed  the  general  development  of 
Greek  religious  thought.  To  the  primitive  duality 
of  Denieter  and  Persephone  was  added  Dionysus, 
lord  of  the  elements,  when  he  had  once  been  accepted 
by  the  Athens  of  Pisistratus.  At  Eleusis  he  appeared 
as  the  child  lacchus.  Later,  under  the  influences  of 
the  strange  school  of  thought  known  as  "Orphic," 
at  once  mystical  and  gross,  this  multiple  god  became 
Zagreus,  through  whose  savage  death  man,  otherwise 
destined  to  be  forever  brute,  came  to  partake  of  the 
divine  nature.  But  in  all  periods  the  mysteries  ''were 
founded  on  the  adoration  of  nature,  its  forces  and 
phenomena,  conceived  rather  than  observed,  inter- 
preted by  the  imagination  and  not  by  reason,  trans- 
formed into  divine  figures  and  histories  by  a  kind  of 
theological  poetry  which  went  off  into  pantheism  on 
the  one  side  and  into  anthropomorphism  on  the  other." 

In  this  theological  poetry  the  position  of  power  was 
held  by  the  long  Homeric  Hymn  to  Demeter,  although 
it  antedates  the  presence  of  lacchus  at  Eleusis  and 
at  least  overlooks  the  importance  of  Triptolemus,  the 
young  prince  of  the  city,  to  whom  the  Earth-Mother 
gave  the  first  seed-corn  and  the  commission  to  teach 
the  art  of  husbandry  throughout  the  world.  The  repre- 
sentation of  this  act  was  left  for  fifth  century  sculpture, 
if  we  may  so  interpret  the  beautiful  reUef  discovered 
at  Eleusis  and  preserved  in  the  National  Museum. 


ELEUSIS  175 

Nor  is  there  more  than  casual  mention  of  Eumolpus, 
the  legendary  first  priest  and  the  eponymous  ancestor 
of  the  priestly  family  in  Athens  which  was  charged 
with  the  care  of  Demeter's  worship.  But  the  Hymn 
told  flawlessly  the  central  story  of  Demeter  and  Perse- 
phone :  the  ravishment  of  Persephone  by  Hades  as  she 
was  picking  roses  and  crocuses,  violets  and  irises  and 
the  marvelous  narcissus  which  the  earth  bore  to  be  her 
snare;  the  grief  of  Demeter  as  she  heard  the  mountain 
peaks  and  the  deep  sea  echo  her  child's  cry,  her  wan- 
dering search,  her  unrecognised  sojourn  at  fragrant 
Eleusis  in  the  courteous  household  of  the  king,  and 
her  retarding  of  the  fruits  of  the  earth ;  the  reunion  of 
mother  and  daughter  for  two  thirds  of  the  year,  and 
the  sending  up  once  more  of  the  grain  from  the  rich 
fields  and  the  burgeoning  of  the  leaves  and  flowers; 
and,  finally,  the  command  of  the  Goddess  that  the  peo- 
ple of  Eleusis  should  build  her  a  great  temple  and  an 
altar  below  the  town  and  the  steep  wall,  above  the 
spring  Callichorus  on  the  jutting  rock. 

Homer  himself  had  not  known  this  story.  Hesiod 
had  lacked  the  Ionic  gift  to  tell  it.  Euripides,  in  a  later 
generation,  was  led  astray  by  his  strain  of  Orphic  im- 
agination which  needed  the  roar  of  rivers  and  the 
thunder  of  the  sea,  the  wail  of  flutes  and  the  clatter  of 
the  tambourine  to  mark  the  frenzy  of  a  suffering  god- 
head. The  Greeks  as  a  people  preferred  a  story  in 
which  nature  perishes  and  blooms  again,  in  which 
grief  and  love  fight  with  death,  while  the  dignity  of  life 


176   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

is  unassailed,  and  the  beauty  of  hills  and  sea,  flowers 
and  welling  springs  irradiates  its  tragedies. 

Only  the  external  facts  concerning  the  celebrations 
are  open  to  us.  The  secrets  of  the  two  successive  ini- 
tiations, one  preparatory  to  the  other,  were  so  jealously 
hidden  by  the  ancient  initiates  that  the  keenest  schol- 
arship has  not  been  able  to  discover  them  in  literature 
or  in  art.  Alcibiades,  idolized  as  he  was,  could  not 
secure  acquittal  from  the  suspicion  of  having  parodied 
the  mysteries.  Silence  was  enjoined  by  religion,  en- 
forced by  law.  This  reserve  about  holy  things,  which 
has  appealed  to  some  moderns  as  the  "chief  lesson 
and  culminating  grace  derived  from  Eleusis,"  was 
proclaimed  not  only  as  a  necessary  condition  but  also 
as  an  integral  part  of  initiation,  "imitating,"  as  Strabo 
expressed  it,  "the  nature  of  the  godhead  which  is  for- 
ever eluding  our  senses."  Knowledge  of  the  outward 
events  of  the  festival  has  been  painstakingly  gathered 
from  passages  in  Athenian  literature,  a  few  inscrip- 
tions, the  excavated  ruins,  vases  and  other  works  of 
art,  and  from  the  controversial  literature,  both  Chris- 
tian and  pagan,  of  the  early  centuries  of  our  era. 

The  "Mysteries"  lasted  nine  days,  the  time  of 
Demeter's  wanderings.  Prior  to  them  the  youths  — 
ephebi  —  of  Athens  went  to  Eleusis  and  brought  thence 
certain  sacred  objects  which  were  to  be  used  in  the 
later  procession.  On  the  15th  of  Boedromion,  or  Sep- 
tember, near  the  time  of  sowing,  the  "mystae,"  who 
in  the  early  spring  month  of  Anthesterion,  the  season 


ELEUSIS  177 

of  planting,  had  participated  in  the  Lesser  Mysteries 
in  a  suburb  of  Athens,  were  assembled  at  the  Stoa 
Poecile  to  listen  to  sundry  proclamations.  The  follow- 
ing day  was  one  of  purification.  The  cry  went  out, 
"seawards,  O  mystae,"  and  every  candidate  washed 
himself  and  his  sacrificial  pig  in  the  bay  near  Eleusis, 
following  the  Greek  feeling  that  the  sea  purges  from  | 
the  evils  of  earth.  For  two  more  days  sacrifices  were 
carried  on  at  Athens.  And  then  on  the  19th  or  the  20th 
came  the  great  procession  to  escort  the  image  of  the 
child  lacchus,  myrtle-crowned  and  carrying  in  his 
hand  a  torch,  back  to  his  Eleusinian  home.  The  day 
was  a  public  holiday.  Great  crowds  gathered  along 
the  Sacred  Way  to  watch  the  long  line  of  ephebi,  mys- 
tics, priests  and  officials,  who,  wearing  myrtle  and 
bearing  torches,  left  the  Dipylon  Gate  early  in  the  morn- 
ing and  reached  the  precinct  at  Eleusis  after  nightfall, 
when  the  mysterious  shadows  were  dispelled  only  by 
the  yellow  glare  of  thousands  upon  thousands  of  torches 
and  by  the  lights  that  streamed  from  the  sacred  build- 
ings. 

The  modern  highroad  follows  very  nearly  the  Sacred      [ 
Way.   Few  travellers  now  brave  the  heat  and  dust  of      \ 
an  Attic  September,  but  in  some  "month  of  flowers'^ 
gain  their  impressions  of  the  beauty  of  the  road,  which      ^\ 
still  leads  over  the  Cephisus,  past   gray- green  olive 
groves,  up  through  the  pine-clad  pass  of  Mount  ^Ega- 
leus,  and  down  again  to  wind  closely  beside  the  curved 
shore  of  the  sea.    In  antiquity  the  Sacred  Way  was 


lyS   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

lined  with  tombs  and  temples  and  shrines.  Moderns 
are  detained  only  by  the  lovely  mediaeval  Convent  of 
Daphne,  at  the  top  of  the  pass,  but  the  ancient  pro- 
cession lingered  not  only  at  the  Temple  of  Apollo  which 
occupied  this  spot,  but  at  many  other  sacred  stations, 
to  offer  sacrifices,  sing  hymns,  and  engage  in  dances, 
solemn  or  joyous  or  wild.  This  was  the  reason  for 
leaving  Athens  so  early  to  cover  only  thirteen  miles 
before  another  sunrise.  The  last  part  of  the  way  fol- 
lowed the  "torchlit  strand"  by  night.  The  "voices 
of  the  night,"  the  moving  feet  of  the  multitude  owned 
lacchus  as  lord,  with  whom  the  stars  also  danced,  the 
stars  whose  breath  is  fire.  And  to  the  stars  of  Sophocles 
Euripides  added  the  elemental  joy  of  moon  and  sea :  — ■ 

When  the  stars  of  the  ether  of  Zeus  lead  out, 

And  the  moon  glides  on  as  the  dancers'  queen, 

And  the  daughters  of  Nereus  join  the  rout 

Adown  the  sea  or  along  the  swirl 

Of  the  rivers  eternal  that  rush  and  whirl  — 

The  ether,  the  moon,  and  the  streams  and  the  sea 

They  dance  to  honour  Persephone, 

The  maiden  crowned  with  the  golden  sheen, 

And  Demeter  the  Mother  —  ah.  Dread  is  she ! 

The  singing  of  the  vast  throngs,  breaking  out  at  sun- 
rise, changing  its  themes  in  fresh  enthusiasms  through 
the  long  day  and  swelling  by  night  into  triumphant 
volume,  must  have  been  unforgettable.  Herodotus  re- 
lates that  in  the  gloomy  time  when  Athens  was  aban- 
doned, and  its  plain  laid  waste  by  Xerxes,  even  a 
Medizing  exile  was  haunted  by  its  ghostly  echoes. 


ELEUSIS  179 

Dicaeus  of  Athens  chanced  to  be  in  the  Thriasian  plain 
with  Demaratus  of  Sparta,  and  saw  a  cloud  of  dust 
advancing  from  Eleusis,  such  as  a  host  of  thirty  thou- 
sand men  might  raise.  As  he  was  wondering  who  the 
men  could  possibly  be,  a  sound  reached  his  ear  and 
he  thought  that  he  recognised  the  mystic  hymn  of 
lacchus.  Even  as  they  looked,  the  dust  became  a  cloud 
and  sailed  away  to  Salamis,  making  for  the  station  of 
the  Grecian  fleet.  This  was  a  sign  to  the  Athenian  that 
the  gods  of  Eleusis  would  destroy  the  fleet  of  Xerxes. 
To  us  an  echo  of  the  singing  comes  through  the  seri- 
ous lyrics  in  the  " Frogs"  of  Aristophanes.  At  the  por- 
tals of  Hades  a  band  of  mystics  sing  over  again  the 
processional  hymns  they  had  often  sung  on  earth,  be- 
ginning with  the  sunrise  summons  to  lacchus  to  leave 
his  Athenian  shrine :  — 

"  O  lacchus,  O  lacchus, 
Morning  star  that  shinest  nightly, 
Lo,  the  mead  is  blazing  brightly, 
Age  forgets  its  years  and  sadness, 
Aged  knees  curvet  for  gladness, 
Lift  thy  flashing  torches  o'er  us. 
Marshal  all  thy  blameless  train, 
Lead,  O  lead  the  way  before  us;  lead  the  lovely  youthful  Chorus 
To  the  marshy  flowery  plain."  * 

The  days  at  Eleusis  were  probably  only  pauses  be- 
tween the  ''great  nights"  of  the  worship  of  Demeter. 
The  nighdy  proceedings  seem  to  have  consisted  of 
three  elements.  The  first  was  an  imitation  of  Demeter' s 

*  Translated  by  Rogers. 


i8o   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

wanderings.  The  initiates  went  up  and  down  the  shore 
by  the  sea,  their  restless  torches  appearing  from  a 
distance  like  great  "swarms  of  fireflies."  They  sat  too 
upon  the  Joyless  Rock,  and  by  meditation  endeavoured 
to  enter  into  the  passion  of  the  Goddess.  The  second 
element  was  some  sacrament  of  food  and  drink  in  com- 
memoration of  the  fact  that  Demeter  was  finally  per- 
suaded by  the  merry  lambe  to  break  her  fast.  Finally 
came  a  series  of  dramatic  representations  in  the  great 
Hall  of  Initiation,  by  means  of  which  the  divine  story 
was  unfolded. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  if  we  knew 
more  details  about  these  celebrations  we  should  under- 
stand more  clearly  the  influence  that  they  exerted  on 
the  minds  and  spirits  of  the  celebrants.  In  the  mysteries, 
we  are  assured  by  Aristotle,  the  initiates  did  not  learn 
anything  precisely,  but  received  impressions,  were  put 
into  a  certain  frame  of  mind  for  which  they  had  been 
prepared.  The  value  of  subtle  influences  like  these  can 
never  be  apprehended  save  by  those  who  have  been 
subjected  to  them.  In  no  age,  under  no  sanction,  have 
men  been  able  to  create  sacred  rites,  whether  secret  or 
open,  that  could  not  be  construed  as  mummery,  not 
only  by  those  of  a  different  age  but  even  by  contem- 
poraries who  stood  outside  the  circle  of  the  elect.  Were 
every  "secret"  of  the  Eleusinian  Mysteries  to  be  recov- 
ered, we  should  still  be  uninitiated  into  their  higher 
wisdom.  We  should  still  be  thrown  back,  as  we  are  at 
present,  upon  a  vicarious  sympathy  with  those  who 


ELEUSIS  i8i 

have  borne  witness  to  the  quickening  of  their  spirits 
in  the  Eleusinian  nights.  Fortunately  this  testimony 
comes  from  a  few  of  the  most  gifted  among  the  Greeks. 
The  often  quoted  statement  of  Cicero,  that  initiation 
taught  men  not  only  to  live  happily  but  to  die  with  a 
fairer  hope,  only  repeats  what  was  said  by  his  literary 
master,  Isocrates : "  Those  who  have  participated  in  the 
mysteries  possess  sweeter  hopes  about  death  and  about 
the  whole  of  life."  Strangely  enough,  ^schylus,  who 
was  born  in  Eleusis  and  whose  plays  in  later  times  were 
acted  there  because  of  their  religious  character,  seems 
never  to  have  been  initiated.  But  Pindar  and  Sopho- 
cles and  Euripides  and  Aristophanes  harboured  per- 
sonal hopes  that  those  who  knew  the  mysteries  were 
"blessed"  in  the  hour  of  death  and  in  the  life  to  come. 
In  the  "Frogs"  the  dead  mystics  end  their  song  in 
solemn  peace :  — 

"  O  happy  mystic  chorus, 
The  blessed  sunshine  o'er  us 
On  us  alone  is  smiling, 
In  its  soft  sweet  light; 
On  us  who  strive  forever 
With  holy,  pure  endeavour 
Alike  by  friend  and  stranger 
To  guide  our  steps  aright."  * 

The  impulse  that  was  derived  from  Eleusis  to  lead 
the  earthly  life  aright  must  have  had  as  many  different 
results  as  there  were  temperaments  among  the  initiates. 
Andocides,  merchant  and  orator,  reminded  the  Athe- 

*  Translated  by  Rogers. 


i82   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

nian  judges  that  they  had  contemplated  the  sacred  rites 
in  order  that  they  might  punish  the  guilty  and  save  the 
innocent.  Plato  felt  that  he  whose  memory  of  initiation 
was  still  fresh  and  who  at  Eleusis  had  been  the  spec- 
tator of  "many  glories  in  the  other  world"  must  see 
in  every  beautiful  face  or  form  that  he  encountered  an 
imitation  of  divine  or  absolute  beauty  toward  which 
his  spirit  would  go  out  in  reverential  love. 

The  excavated  remains  of  ancient  Eleusis  consist  of 
ground  foundations  or  even  fainter  traces  of  buildings 
and  porticoes  dating  from  the  "Mycenaean"  period 
to  the  age  of  the  Antonines.  Pisistratus,  Cimon,  Per- 
icles and  Hadrian  have  left  fragmentary  records  in 
stone  of  their  interest  in  this  religious  centre.  The  Tem- 
ple of  the  Mysteries,  which  was  a  great  hall  rather  than 
a  sanctuary,  saw  many  changes  in  the  course  of  the 
centuries.  The  older  structure  of  Pisistratus's  day,  de- 
stroyed by  the  Persians,  was  replaced  by  Pericles,  per- 
haps according  to  plans  by  Ictinus.  Left  unfinished 
by  him,  it  was  added  to  by  Greek  and  Roman  until  its 
boastful  splendour  aroused  the  anger  of  the  Gothic 
monks  who  came  south  with  Alaric  and  compassed  its 
final  ruin. 

Homelier  memories  centre  in  the  Spring  of  Fair 
Dances  (Callichorus),  now  identified.  Here,  Pausanias 
tells  us,  "  the  Eleusinian  women  first  danced  and  sang 
in  honour  of  the  goddess,"  decked  perhaps  like  the 
Doric  maidens  whose  worship  of  the  same  goddess 
charmed  the  eyes  of  Alcman :  — 


ELEUSIS  183 

We  came  to  great  Demeter's  fane,  we  nine, 
All  maidens,  all  in  goodly  raiment  clad; 
In  goodly  raiment  clad,  with  necklace  bright 
Of  carven  ivory,  a  radiant  gleam. 

A  fortunate  dream  prevented  Pausanias  from  relat- 
ing to  the  uninitiated  what  he  saw  within  the  sacred 
precinct.  In  unpoisoned  content,  therefore,  lured  by 
the  beauty  of  the  "white  spring"  which  Callimachus, 
the  Alexandrian,  included  among  Demeter's  gifts,  the 
modern  traveller  may  sit  on  the  temple  steps  and  aban- 
don thought,  even  as  many  an  ancient  mystic  in  the 
autumnal  days  between  the  holy  nights  must  have 
mounted  to  some  place  of  outlook  whence  he  could 
watch  the  deep  blue  sea  break  into  foam  delicate  and 
white  as  the  face  of  Persephone. 

The  mysteries  ended  on  the  24th,  with  a  public 
festival.  At  Athens  games  were  held,  called  the  Eleu- 
sinia,  offering  as  a  prize  a  measure  of  barley  reaped 
from  the  field  of  Rharos  close  to  the  walls  of  Eleusis 
where  the  first  seed  corn  had  fructified.  In  later  times, 
with  the  general  increase  of  holidays,  this  festival  was 
prolonged,  but  in  the  greatest  days  of  Athens  the  pro- 
cession of  mystics  returned  to  the  city  on  the  25th,  with 
ceremonies  of  farewell  to  Persephone  now  leaving  her 
mother  to  return  to  her  gloomy  lord,  like  summer  near- 
ing  the  embrace  of  winter ;  and  with  some  final  ritual, 
performed,  it  may  be,  at  the  Dipylon  Gate  rather  than 
at  Eleusis,  of  prayer  to  sky  and  earth  that  the  one  might 
impregnate  and  the  other  bear.  On  the  curb  of  a  sacred 


i84   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

well  before  the  city  gate  has  been  found  the  very  ancient 
formula,  not  yet  outlived  by  the  generations  of  men 
who  live  upon  the  fruits  of  the  earth. 

The  day  of  return  gave  one  last  opportunity  for  a 
public  demonstration  —  this  time  of  hilarity.  Justified 
by  the  quips  and  cranks  of  lambe,  the  initiates  yielded 
to  the  impulse  which  in  the  natural  man  follows  close 
upon  exaltation.  At  the  bridge  over  the  Cephisus  the 
people  of  the  city,  wearing  masks,  met  the  procession, 
and  a  carnival  of  scurrilous  wit  ensued,  which  was  a 
savoury  memory  to  Aristophanes's  mystics  in  the  world 
of  shadows.  To  us  the  recollection  may  bring  a  sudden 
distrust  of  the  sympathy  with  the  past  which,  within 
the  unfretted  silence  of  Eleusis,  seemed  completely  to 
possess  us.  Like  the  spectators  in  the  comedy  we 
get  a  whiff  of  pork.  The  uncompromising  light  reveals 
the  vulgarities  of  a  revelling  crowd.  The  cymbals  of  the 
priests,  clashed  only  at  this  spot,  drown  the  voices  "of 
no  tone."  Is  it,  after  all,  true,  as  the  early  Christians 
believed,  that  orgies,  not  prayers,  have  busied  these 
men  and  women? 

But  with  the  crossing  of  the  bridge  the  mood  van- 
ishes. The  western  sun  is  once  more  adorning  the 
Athenian  Acropolis.  Not  only  Pindar  and  Plato  faced 
this  hill  with  a  new  reverence  after  their  Eleusinian 
nights,  but  many  a  simpler  man  and  woman  must  have 
come  home  comforted  and  hopeful  to  take  up  old 
burdens  on  the  morrow.  If,  viewed  by  a  Plato  from 
the  heights  of  "true  philosophy,"  thousands  who  came 


ELEUSIS  *  185 

from  Eleusis  were  still  blind,  or  only  partially  aware 
of  the  meaning  of  life  and  death,  this  was  but  the 
Greek  manifestation  of  a  universal  fact:  "Many  are 
the  thyrsus-bearers  but  few  are  the  mystics." 


CHAPTER  IX 

yEGINA 

Not  far  ofif  from  the  Graces'  favour  falls  this  island's  lot.  She 
keepeth  civic  faith  and  hath  attained  to  glory  in  the  valour  of  the 
sons  of  ^acus.  Flawless  is  her  fame  from  the  beginning;  for  she  is 
sung  as  nurse  of  heroes,  foremost  in  prize-winning  contests  numer- 
ous, foremost  in  swift  war.  Pindar. 

Pindar's  praise  of  ^gina  must  have  been  as 
wormwood  to  the  Athenians,  for  her  Dorian 
blood  and  commercial  supremacy  made  her 
their  natural  rival,  and  her  proximity  fanned  rivalry 
into  hatred.  Athens  conquered  in  the  end,  and  time  and 
tourists  have  completed  the  victory  by  turning  the 
island  into  one  of  the  "excursions  in  Attica."  No 
longer  the  "eye-sore  of  Piraeus,"  as  Pericles  called  it, 
it  now  immeasurably  enhances  the  Attic  landscape  and 
beckons  to  its  own  shores  those  who  day  by  day  have 
watched  its  mountainous  beauty  across  the  estranging 
gulf.  Only  on  the  western  side  of  the  island,  where  the 
town  of  iEgina  occupies  the  site  of  the  ancient  capital, 
is  the  coast  free  from  steep  cliffs,  and  the  entire  surface, 
as  it  is  seen  from  Athens,  consists  of  mountain-ridges 
crowned  by  the  high  peak  of  Oros,  once  sacred  to  Zeus 
Panhellenios  and  now  bearing  a  chapel  to  Saint  Elias. 
Toward  these  .^ginetan  hills  the  eye  inevitably  turns 


^GINA  187 

whether  the  sullen  rain-clouds  are  gathering,  as  of  old, 
about  the  highest  summit,  or  Zeus  unrolls  his  bluest 
canopy  above  the  deeper  azure  of  their  slopes,  or 
whether,  against  the  changing  sunsets,  they  darken 
into  stormy  purple  or  delicately  veil  themselves  in 
amethystine,  shot  with  rose. 

iEgina's  lodestone  for  modern  travellers  is  the  Doric 
temple  on  a  hill  above  the  Bay  of  Marina  in  the  north- 
eastern part  of  the  island.  Regular  boats  ply  between 
Piraeus  and  the  harbour-town  of  iEgina,  the  route  taken 
by  Lucian's  group  of  friends  who  hired  a  tiny  boat  at 
four  obols  a  head  in  order  to  see  the  islanders  celebrat- 
ing their  famous  Festival  of  Hecate.  From  the  town 
the  temple  may  be  reached  by  a  ride  of  several  hours 
across  the  rough  but  fertile  northern  districts  of  the 
island.  Excursion  boats,  however,  for  those  who  have 
but  a  day,  cross  directly  from  Piraeus  to  the  Bay  of 
Marina,  a  route  more  nearly  akin  to  that  followed  by 
the  Athenian  ships  which  began  the  mad  expedition 
to  Sicily  by  a  race  "as  far  as  ^Egina,"  and  then  turned 
their  prows  toward  the  open  sea.  From  the  shore  of 
the  bay  it  is  an  easy  walk  to  the  isolated  hill-top  upon 
which  the  ruined  temple  stands.  On  an  April  day  this 
approach  is  one  of  vivid  beauty,  the  bright  new  green 
of  fig  trees  glistening  among  resinous  pines  and  the 
ground  rioting  in  the  colour  of  many  flowers.  The  hill- 
top itself  offers  a  scene  which  is  unsurpassed  even 
among  the  remoter  islands  of  the  Greek  seas.  The 
intense  brilliance  of  the  stuccoed  limestone  columns 


1 88   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

under  the  cloudless  sky  is  tempered  by  the  somewhat 
sombre  green  of  neighbouring  trees.  Afar  are  seen  the 
broken  coast  and  the  varied  mountains  of  the  mainland 
from  Megara  to  Sunium.  Below,  in  capricious  loveli- 
ness, now  a  tranquil  plain  of  ultramarine,  now  a  rest- 
less surface  of  sparkling  crystal,  stretches  the  Saronic 
Gulf. 

The  temple  was  erected  to  Aphaea,  protectress  of 
women.  Of  the  outer  colonnade  enough  is  intact  to 
reveal  the  dignity  of  the  original  structure,  but  it  was 
in  the  pediment  sculptures  that  the  art  of  ^gina  was 
best  expressed.  Preserved  now  in  the  Munich  Museum, 
they  are  heirs  to  the  ancient  fortune  of  many  iEginetan 
products  which  were  shipped  to  the  north  and  to  the 
south,  to  Egypt  and  to  the  barbarous  shores  of  the 
Black  Sea.  These  pediment  groups,  well  known  as 
examples  of  the  work  of  the  iEginetan  school  of  sculp- 
ture in  the  early  part  of  the  fifth  century,  probably 
represented  episodes  of  the  Trojan  War.  This  would 
seem  to  indicate  that  they  were  produced  after  the 
victory  at  Salamis  which  inspired  so  many  symbolistic 
expressions  in  art  and  literature  of  the  conquest  of  bar- 
barians by  Greeks.  ^Egina  distinguished  herself  at 
Salamis,  her  sailors  being  awarded  the  first  honours 
for  valour.  And  her  older  heroes  had  fought  conspicu- 
ously in  the  Trojan  War,  the  earlier  act  of  the  long 
drama. 

But  it  w^as  the  personal  bravery  of  the  ^Eginetans 
rather  than  their  national  policy  which  brought  them 


^GINA 
Temple  of  Apha 


^GINA  189 

glory  at  Salamis.  The  island-commonwealth  was  in- 
clined to  aid  the  Persians,  and  it  was  the  interference 
of  Athens  at  this  crisis  which  brought  on  the  open  war 
between  the  two  maritime  powers.  By  the  middle  of 
the  fifth  century  ^gina  was  completely  conquered  and 
made  a  member  of  the  Confederacy  of  Delos.  Twenty 
years  later  the  Dorian  inhabitants  were  expelled  and 
the  island  freshly  settled  from  Attica. 

iEgina's  heyday  had  antedated  that  of  Athens  by  two 
centuries.  Her  argosies  had  been  known  in  all  ports 
where  men  bought  or  sold.  Her  system  of  coinage  and 
of  weights  and  measures  had  set  the  standards  for  the 
Greek  world.  At  home  her  people  displayed  their  rest- 
less energies  in  both  industrial  and  artistic  pursuits. 
In  literature  alone  were  they  barren.  Their  claim  to 
poetry  lies  only  in  the  inspiration  which  one  manifesta- 
tion of  their  energy  yielded  to  a  foreign  poet. 

The  iEginetans  were  remarkable  athletes  as  well  as 
fighters,  and  Pindar  boasted  that  he  held  up  a  mirror 
to  their  noble  deeds,  and  wrought  for  them  a  necklace 
of  the  Muses,  **with  white  ivory  and  gold  inlaid  and 
coral  of  the  lily  flower  gathered  'neath  the  ocean  dew." 
The  young  Pytheas,  indeed,  who  won  the  pancratium 
at  Nemea,  was  celebrated  by  both  Pindar  and  Bacchy- 
lides,  and  in  the  ode  of  the  latter  poet  there  lurks  the 
memory  of  some  spring  visit  to  ^gina  when  the  young 
flowers  and  reeds  were  made  into  garlands,  and  bare- 
footed girls  bounded  like  young  fawns  toward  the  flow- 
ery hills.   Pindar,  in  the  eleven  extant  odes  which  he 


iQo   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

wrote  for  iEginetan  youths,  mingled  a  "fitting  draught 
as  meed  for  their  toil  upon  the  highway  clear  of  god- 
inspired  deeds."  His  willingness  to  use  his  best  gifts 
in  their  behalf  he  explained  by  the  ancient  friendship 
between  the  island  and  his  native  city,  typified  by  the 
sisterhood  of  the  nymphs  Thebe  and  iEgina,  both 
beloved  by  Zeus.  And  although  he  praised  the  athletic 
spirit  of  the  ^ginetans  and  their  justice,  their  defence 
of  strangers,  and  the  deliverance  wrought  by  them  at 
Salamis  "when  Zeus  was  showering  destruction  far  and 
wide  and  death  came  thick  as  hail  upon  unnumbered 
men,"  his  most  frequent  theme  was  the  glory  of  their 
legendary  heroes. 

The  nymph  ^Egina  had  borne  ^Eacus,  who  was  so 
just  a  king  that  at  his  death  the  gods  made  him  a  judge 
in  Hades.  His  sons  were  Peleus  and  Telamon,  their 
sons  were  Achilles  and  Ajax  and  Teucer. 

Beyond  the  sources  of  the  Nile  and  through  the  Hy- 
perboreans they  pass,  nor  is  there  any  city  so  barbarian  or 
confused  in  speech  that  it  knoweth  not  the  hero  Peleus  and 
his  fame  nor  that  of  Ajax,  son  of  Telamon,  whom  on  his 
ships  Alcmena's  son  led  forth  to  Troy. 

Lords  of  wide  adventure,  they  drifted  away  from 
iEgina's  shores.  Teucer,  son  of  Telamon,  ruled  in  Cy- 
prus, anew  land,  and  Ajax  held  the  Salamis  of  his  father. 
Peleus  ruled  in  Thessalian  Phthia.  In  the  Euxine  Sea 
Achilles  won  a  "shining  isle,"  and  his  son  was  prince 
in  "  Epirus,  famed  afar,  where,  from  Dodona  on,  the 
cattle-pasturing  headlands,  jutting  high,  lie  out  against 


iflGINA  191 

the  Ionian  Sea."  But  at  the  invocation  of  Pindar  they 
gather  once  more  in  their  ancient  home. 

Nor  was  the  significance  of  human  greatness  absent 
from  Pindar's  mind:  — 

Within  a  little  space  the  joys  of  man  spring  up;  so  too 
they  fall  again  to  earth  when  shaken  by  an  adverse  doom. 
We  creatures  of  a  day !  What's  man  ?  What  is  he  not  ?  — 
a  shadow's  dream !  But  when  there  comes  a  glory  sent  of 
God  there  rests  on  men  a  bright  light  and  an  age  serene. 

Thus  to  a  youth  of  iEgina  who  was  lifted  on  the  wings 
of  hope  and  valour  the  poet  gave  a  warning  and  a  larger 
hope. 


CHAPTER  X 

MEGARA  AND  CORINTH  —  THE  GULF  OF  CORINTH 

Cities  which  were  great  aforetime  now  as  a  rule  are  mean,  and 
those  formerly  were  small  which  in  my  day  have  become  great. 
Therefore,  since  I  know  that  human  prosperity  never  remains  sta- 
tionary, of  both  alike  I  shall  make  mention.  Herodotus. 

ON  the  neck  of  land  that  unites  Attica  to  the 
Peloponnesus  two  Dorian  cities  attained  to 
prominence  in  the  centuries  intervening  be- 
tween Homeric  civilization  and  the  rivalries  of  Sparta 
and  Athens,  those  great  representatives  of  the  Do- 
rian and  Ionian  races  who  reduced  all  other  cities  to 
the  position  of  alHes  or  satellites.  Only  before  the 
middle  of  the  sixth  century  were  Corinth  and  Megara 
powers  of  the  first  rank. 

They  are  now  stations  on  the  way  to  Athens  for  those 
who  enter  Greece  at  Patras.  The  railroad  journey 
between  these  cities,  along  the  coasts  of  the  Corinthian 
and  Saronic  Gulfs,  ought  to  be  taken  in  one  direction 
or  the  other  by  every  visitor  to  Greece,  for  scarcely  any 
other  displays  to  better  advantage  the  combination  of 
mountain,  plain,  and  sea,  which  are  the  triad  of  Greek 
landscape.  The  waters  of  the  Corinthian  Gulf,  in 
swift  response  to  sun,  wind,  and  cloud,  vary  from  pellucid 
blue  to  vivid,  foam- flecked  emerald,  marked  by  strange 


MEGARA  AND   CORINTH  193 

bands  of  deep  wine  red.  Along  its  northern  coast  the 
mountains  pile  up  in  restrained  and  harmonious  masses 
of  blue  or  purple,  crowned  in  winter  or  in  spring  with 
snowy  white.  At  times  the  west  wind  from  the  ocean 
sweeps  up  this  long  narrow  gulf  as  if  through  a  canon, 
beating  the  waves  into  fury  and  filling  the  air  with  cold 
moisture,  even  while  the  sun  or  the  moon  denies  the 
presence  of  a  storm.  On  the  other  side  of  the  Isthmus 
the  Saronic  Gulf  pushes  far  asunder  the  coasts  of  At- 
tica and  the  Peloponnesus  and  skirts  on  the  north  the 
littoral  of  Megara.  From  its  placid  evening  surface  the 
mountains  of  iEgina  and  Salamis  rise  in  curves  and 
sharp  peaks  of  cool  violet  and  rose.  Beyond  the  Bay  of 
Eleusis  the  eye  that  has  not  yet  seen  Athens  turns  in- 
land in  strained  waiting  for  the  Acropolis.  Rising  out 
of  a  still  distant  plain  and  bearing  upon  its  crest  the 
half-realized  ruins  of  the  Parthenon,  the  hill  of  the  pil- 
grim's desires  becomes  a  reality  —  "and  from  a  dream, 
behold,  it  is  a  waking  vision." 

This  journey,  of  scarcely  eight  hours,  serves  also  to 
reveal  a  surprising  amount  of  Greek  territory.  Taking 
it  in  the  reverse  direction,  the  train  passes  through 
Attica,  Megara,  the  Isthmus,  and  Sicyon,  and  follows 
the  entire  northern  coast  line  of  Achaea.  The  moun- 
tains across  the  Corinthian  Gulf  include  not  only 
Helicon  and  Cithaeron  of  Boeotia,  and  Parnassus  of 
Phocis,  but  also  unfamiliar  peaks,  barren  of  the  Muses, 
belonging  to  Locris,  ^Etolia,  and  Acarnania.  From 
Patras  can  be  seen  the  low  coast  of  the  iEtolian  bay 


194    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

on  which  lies  Mesolonghi,  the  burial-place  of  Byron's 
heart.  Near  it,  although  unseen  from  Patras,  is  Caly- 
don,  the  scene  of  Meleager's  boar  hunt,  celebrated  by 
Homer  and  Bacchylides,  Euripides  and  Swinburne. 

Patras,  the  western  seaport  of  Greece  and  surpassed 
in  commercial  importance  only  by  Athens  and  Piraeus, 
is  in  Achaea.  The  name  of  this  province  evokes  Ho- 
meric memories  only  because  it  was  settled  by  Achaeans 
from  Thessaly.  Its  later  gift  to  Greek  life  was  the 
"Achaean  League"  against  Macedon  and  Rome  which, 
as  Pausanias  says,  rose  on  the  ruins  of  Greece  "like  a 
fresh  shoot  on  a  blasted  and  withered  trunk."  Patras 
itself  was  unimportant  until  the  time  of  Augustus,  and 
its  most  valuable  associations  are  with  the  early  history 
of  Christianity.  In  physical  beauty,  however,  it  is  thor- 
oughly Greek — "beautiful  Patras,"  Lucian  called  it, 
by  way  of  contrast  to  the  knavishness  of  one  of  its  in- 
habitants. The  epithet  doubtless  included  not  only  the 
adornments  added  by  the  Roman  emperors  but  also 
the  natural  charms  of  its  situation.  The  fruitful  plain, 
the  height  of  Mount  Voidia  in  the  background,  the 
splendid  waterfront  facing  the  mountainous  ^tolian 
coast  combine  to  give  a  suitable  welcome  to  Greece. 
This  entrance  is  never  fairer  than  in  the  hour  when  the 
silver  gray  of  dawn  is  obliterated  by  the  clear  bloom 
in  the  sky  that  heralds  the  rising  sun.  The  morning 
light  reveals  outlines  in  naked  distinctness,  and  tinges 
all  surfaces  with  a  colour  so  fresh  and  buoyant  that  an 
immediate  conviction  arises  of  the  joyous  nobility  of 


MEGARA   AND   CORINTH  195 

Greek  scenery  and  of  the  youthfulness  which  a  race  so 
nurtured  might  maintain. 

The  plain  of  Megara  is  separated  from  Attica  by  the 
Kerata  and  from  the  Isthmus  by  Mount  Geraneia,  a 
massive  range  extending  across  the  Megarian  territory 
from  the  Corinthian  to  the  Saronic  Gulf  and  interposing 
a  rough  and  lofty  bulwark  between  Central  Greece  and 
the  Peloponnesus. 

Megara  is  now  an  unpretentious  village  with  very 
white  houses  which  gleam  from  a  distance  among  the 
encircling  mountains.  Its  site  is  that  of  the  ancient 
city,  on  the  double  summit  of  a  hill  above  the  plain 
filled  with  vineyards,  olive  orchards,  and  bright  green 
fields  of  wheat,  rye  and  barley.  A  good  road  leads  to  the 
coast,  little  more  than  a  mile  away,  where  once  the 
harbour  of  Nisaea  focused  the  large  sea  business  of 
Megara.  The  name  of  the  harbour  kept  alive  the 
memory  of  Nisus,  son  of  Athenian  Pandion,  the  first 
king  of  Megara  (the  lonians  perhaps  preceded  the 
Dorians  in  its  occupation),  as  the  ** island  of  Minoa,"  * 
now  the  promontory  of  St.  George,  recalled  the  inva- 
sion by  Minos  of  Crete.  The  king's  daughter,  out  of 
love  for  his  enemy,  betrayed  her  father.  The  chorus 
in  the  "Choephoroi"  of  ^schylus  uses  the  story  as  a 
warning  to  Clytemnestra :  — 

*  The  frequent  occurrence  of  Minoa  as  a  place  name  in  Greece 
both  indicates  the  widespread  influences  of  Crete  in  prehistoric  times 
and  is  also  one  of  the  arguments  for  the  adoption,  at  least  tentatively, 
of  the  technical  term  "Minoan"  civilization. 


196    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Another  murd'rous  maid  is  sung  in  story  and  calls  forth 
our  hate.  Led  on  by  foeman  lover,  won  by  gifts  of  Minos, 
gold-wrought  Cretan  necklaces,  she  slew  a  man  beloved 
and  sheared  the  lock  immortal  from  the  head  of  Nisus 
while  he  breathed  in  unsuspecting  sleep.  But  Hermes 
overtook  her! 

The  history  of  Megara  was  influenced  now  by  Athens 
and  now  by  Corinth.  At  times  neighbourhood  quarrels 
with  Corinth  turned  her  toward  Athens,  but  in  crises 
the  bonds  of  race  proved  stronger.  Her  great  epoch, 
however,  was  in  the  eighth  and  seventh  centuries,  before 
the  balance  of  power  had  been  shifted  by  the  Athenian 
conquest  of  Salamis.  During  these  centuries  Megara 
rivalled  Corinth  in  colonial  expansion,  and  from  Nisaea 
adventurers  set  sail  to  found  Megara  Hyblaea  in  Sicily, 
Heraclea  on  the  Euxine,  and  above  all  Byzantium  on 
the  Bosphorus,  which  long  before  its  christening  as 
Constantinople  had  forgotten  its  mother  city. 

In  arts  and  letters  Megara's  achievements  were 
slight,  although  tradition  assigned  to  her  the  creation 
of  comedy.  Only  one  of  her  poets,  Theognis,  belongs 
to  our  canon  of  Greek  literature.  A  contemporary  of 
Solon,  he  exhibited  the  same  tendency  to  use  poetry 
as  a  medium  of  political  discussion,  but  he  was  totally 
opposed  to  the  democratic  influences  which  in  his  city, 
as  elsewhere,  were  making  headway  against  the  aris- 
tocracy. Oligarchy  and  tyranny  had  been  succeeded 
by  this  larger  struggle.  Although  Theognis  was  in  the 
thick  of  the  fight,  his  wide  influence  in  later  centuries 


MEGARA   AND   CORINTH  197 

was  due  rather  to  his  sententious  utterances  on  ethics, 
which  classed  him  with  the  "gnomic  poets."  Xeno- 
phon  called  the  poetry  of  Theognis  "a  comprehensive 
treatment  concerning  men,"  and  as  such  it  was  used 
with  the  works  of  Homer  and  Hesiod  in  the  educational 
system  of  fourth-century  Athens.  Modems  will  find 
in  the  extant  fragments  little  of  the  power  which  saves 
a  poet's  politics  and  ethics  from  becoming  in  a  later 
age  either  outworn  or  commonplace.  But  in  the  public 
square  of  the  village,  the  old  hillside  market-place,  we 
acquire  a  sympathy  for  his  personal  life  and  his  love 
of  home.  Here  he  stood  and  looked  down  upon  the 
fields  of  his  confiscated  estates,  wasted  in  the  riotous 
Hving  of  new  masters.  The  shrill  cry  of  a  bird,  announc- 
ing the  autumnal  harvests,  reminded  him  that  no  longer 
for  him  were  mules  drawing  the  curved  plough  through 
the  furrows.  The  sea,  lying  at  the  door  of  Megara,  bore 
him  into  exile,  and  with  Alcaeus  and  Plato  (and  their 
Roman  and  modem  imitators)  he  likened  the  State  to 
a  ship  in  danger,  sailed  by  an  evil  crew,  threatened  by 
leaping  waves. 

In  the  Persian  wars  Megara  made  a  brave  show, 
sinking  all  animosity  toward  Athens  in  the  great  need 
of  Hellas.  But  fifty  years  later  a  bitter  quarrel  with 
Athens  became  one  of  the  precipitating  causes  of  the 
Peloponnesian  War.  The  Athenians  had  passed  a 
decree  excluding  the  Megarians  from  their  markets 
'and  from  all  the  harbours  in  their  dominions.  The 
Spartans  demanded  its  revocation,  and  the  Athenians, 


198    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

influenced  by  Pericles,  refused.  Opinions  differed  as 
to  his  disinterestedness.  In  the  judgment  of  Thucy- 
dides  he  was  moved  solely  by  reasons  of  state.  The 
more  popular  opinion  that  he  was  involved  by  Aspasia 
in  a  scandalous  affair  affecting  both  cities  appears  in 
Aristophanes,  who  also  does  not  fail  to  see  the  comic 
side  of  a  situation  which  forced  the  impoverished  Me- 
garians  to  work  their  way  secretly  into  the  Athenian 
markets  bringing  cucumbers  and  sucking  pigs  and  gar- 
lic under  their  cloaks.  The  later  comic  poets  made  a 
butt  of  the  Megarians,  and  the  Megarian's  sneer  about 
the  Athenian  figs  and  Propylaea  was  doubtless  only  one 
of  many  retorts. 

After  the  Peloponnesian  War  we  have  a  happier  pic- 
ture of  Megara  as  the  home  of  philosophy.  Plato  in 
his  first  grief  over  the  death  of  his  master  went  there 
to  visit  Eucleides,  who  had  been  wont  to  creep  into 
Athens  by  night,  in  defiance  of  the  decree,  to  talk  with 
Socrates.  And  from  the  vivid  opening  scene  of  the 
"  Thesetetus,"  a  severely  metaphysical  dialogue  written 
a  few  years  later,  we  know  that  Eucleides  and  his  philo- 
sophical friends  used  to  meet  each  other  in  the  market- 
place (where  now  the  peasant  women  dance  at  Easter) 
or  go  to  the  harbour  to  greet  a  friend  en  route  from 
Corinth  to  Athens,  or  gather  at  home  for  readings  and 
conversations.  Isocrates  praised  in  Megara  a  domestic 
prosperity  finer  than  the  lust  for  empire  which  had 
ruined  Athens  and  Sparta. 

The  Megarians  shared  the  Greek  lot  at  Chaeronea. 


MEGARA   AND   CORINTH  199 

The  later  fate  of  the  city  is  summed  up  in  the  reflections 
of  the  Roman  governor,  Sulpicius,  who,  coming  from 
^gina,  gazed  at  its  ruins  from  his  vessel's  prow  and 
argued  from  them  the  brevity  of  human  glory. 

In  antiquity  travellers  by  land  made  their  way  from 
Megara  to  Corinth  either  over  the  difficult  heights  of 
Geraneia  or  close  along  the  shore  of  the  Saronic  Gulf. 
The  railroad  follows  the  direction  of  this  coast  route, 
and  from  a  high  bridge  the  old  road  can  be  seen  below, 
skirting  the  foot  of  the  precipices  in  which  the  spurs 
of  Geraneia  end.  These  precipices  crowd  so  close  to  the 
sea  that  the  space  for  the  road  is  exceedingly  narrow, 
and  the  resulting  dangers  gave  to  the  pass  in  modern 
days  the  name  of  Kake  Skala.  Even  in  the  nineteenth 
century  robbers  made  use  of  the  natural  difficulties  of 
the  site  as  they  did  in  Roman  times.  Hadrian  thought 
it  important  to  widen  the  road  as  much  as  possible. 
To  the  ancients  the  steep  precipices  were  known  as  the 
Scironian  Cliffs,  and  the  Athenian  story  ran  that  a  rob- 
ber, Sciron,  dwelt  beside  them  and  hurled  every  way- 
farer into  the  sea,  where  a  huge  tortoise  devoured  him. 
Theseus  killed  the  villain  and  threw  him  down  to  his 
old  ally.  The  sea  that  surged  below  the  road  took  its 
own  toll  of  travellers.  Among  the  unfortunates  in  the. 
fifth  century  one  was  either  rich  or  distinguished 
enough  to  have  an  inscription  by  Simonides  upon  his 
cenotaph :  — 

Geraneia,  cruel  scar, 

Where  the  mist  of  morning  creeps, 


200   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Would  that  thou  on  Ister  far 

Ward  wert  keeping,  or  where  sweeps 

Scythian  stream  of  Tanais. 
Wert  not  here  where  snow-storms'  scourges 
Fill  Moluriad's  rocky  gorges; 
Wert  not  here  above  the  surges 

On  Scironian  rocks  that  hiss. 
As  it  is,  his  corpse  the  Ocean 
Death-chilled  swings  in  restless  motion; 

Mocks  his  voyage  a  bitter  laugh 

Echoing  from  his  cenotaph. 

This  spot  of  frequent  shipwrecks  had  also  its  sea 
deities.  The  Moluriad  Rock,  a  part  of  the  Scironian 
Cliffs,  was  the  scene  of  Ino's  payment  of  her  share  in 
the  curse  laid  upon  her  father,  Cadmus  of  Thebes. 
Chased  by  an  angry  husband  down  the  mountain 
ridges,  she  plunged  into  the  sea  with  her  infant  son 
Melicertes,  or,  as  Euripides  said,  in  comparing  her  to 
Medea,  with  two  children  in  her  arms :  — 

One  woman  only  have  I  known 

Of  all  before  us,  one  alone. 
Lay  hand  upon  her  children  dear: 
God-maddened  Ino,  from  her  home 
By  Zeus's  wife  sent  forth  to  roam, 
With  impious  murder  to  the  mere. 

Ah  wretched  one!  from  headland  springing, 
Her  children  twain  and  self  out-flinging, 
She  perished  with  them  in  the  foam. 

Ino  became  Leucothea,  the  kindly  goddess  of  Odys- 
seus's  journey,  and  Melicertes  became  Palaemon,  the 
Greek  representative  of  the  Phoenician  Melkart,  wor- 
shipped on  the  Isthmus.  To  them,  in  the  Anthology, 
sailors  prayed  on  their  way  to  the  ''sweet  shore  of 


MEGARA  AND   CORINTH  201 

Piraeus"  and  fishermen  dedicated  strange  sea  crea- 
tures that  came  up  in  their  nets  or  were  found  upon 
the  shore. 

The  train  keeps  on  its  way  by  the  Saronic  Gulf, 
crosses  the  canal  on  a  bridge  and  reaches  New  Corinth 
on  the  Corinthian  Gulf. 

The  destiny  of  Corinth  was  so  peculiarly  the  result 
of  its  situation  that  to  describe  the  one  is  to  foreshadow 
the  other.  Aristotle  might  have  illustrated  by  this  city 
the  physical  qualities  which  he  considered  desirable. 
It  had  "a  native  abundance  of  streams  and  fountains" 
to  promote  health,  and  its  acropolis  was  one  of  the 
strongest  in  Greece.  Most  of  all,  it  was  "well  situated 
in  regard  both  to  sea  and  land."  Thus  it  was  "a  stra- 
tegic centre  for  protecting  the  whole  district,"  and  was 
"convenient  for  receiving  the  crops  and  also  for  the 
bringing  in  of  timber  and  any  other  natural  pro- 
ducts." Corinth  commanded  two  ports,  one  on  either 
side  of  the  Isthmus,  and  stood  also  at  the  entrance  to 
the  Peloponnesus.  As  "god-built  portal  of  the  bright 
island  of  Pelops"  she  controlled  the  land  routes  for  the 
exports  and  imports  of  southern  Greece,  and  as  a  city 
"of  two  seas"  she  was  mistress  of  the  trade  of  the  far 
east  and  the  far  west.  At  the  beginning  of  the  Pelo- 
ponnesian  War  she  urged  the  Dorian  allies  to  remember 
that  if  they  did  not  protect  her  seaboard  they  would 
find  it  difficult  to  carry  their  produce  to  the  sea  or 
to  barter  in  return  for  the  goods  which  the  sea  gives 


202   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

to  the  land.  Already  in  Homer  Corinth  was  "rich," 
and  her  later  history  was  one  of  commerce,  coloniza- 
tion, invention,  and  the  arts  and  crafts  rather  than 
of  literature.  For  that  reason  the  pathos  of  her  pres- 
ent desolation  is  unrelieved  by  thoughts  of  a  rescued 
legacy. 

New  Corinth,  lying  close  to  the  shore  of  the  Gulf, 
several  miles  from  the  ancient  western  harbour,  is  a 
town  of  hopeful  energy  and  ambition,  its  railroad  sta- 
tion and  steamboat  quay  indicating  a  potential  capac- 
ity for  growth.  Old  Corinth,  three  and  a  half  miles 
inland,  consists  of  a  few  poor  houses  unified  into  a 
certain  village  dignity  by  a  great  plane  tree  that  shad- 
ows the  "public  square."  These  houses  have  gathered 
near  the  spot  to  which  tourists  make  their  way  on  foot 
or  by  carriage  from  the  seashore  town.  Before  the 
excavations  of  the  American  School  were  begun  in 
1896,  they  came  in  order  to  ascend  the  massive  rock 
of  Acrocorinth  and  to  see  the  remaining  monoliths  of 
a  Doric  temple  which  antedates  the  classical  period  of 
Greek  architecture.  The  excavations  have  added  sites 
deserving  of  close  attention,  but  without  effect  on  the 
general  features  of  the  landscape.  Acrocorinth  rules 
the  Isthmian  plain,  and  its  summit  offers  an  outlook, 
from  Strabo's  time  the  theme  of  many  panegyrics,  over 
wide- flung  country  and  sea  to  the  mountain  crests  of 
Delphi  and  Arcadia,  of  Attica  and  Boeotia.  The  plateau 
on  the  north  and  east  of  this  acropolis  was  the  site  of 
the  ancient  city.  Apollo's  columns,  which  saw  its  great- 


MEGARA  AND  CORINTH  203 

est  power  and  have  withstood  its  successive  blights, 
alone  compete  with  the  impressiveness  of  the  citadel. 
Seated  on  the  steps  of  the  temple  and  watching  the 
mists  break  away  from  the  impatient  heights  of  Acro- 
corinth,  we  may  recount  to  ourselves  the  tale  ''of  Cor- 
inth blest,  the  vestibule  of  Isthmian  Poseidon,  nurse 
of  manly  splendour." 

The  diversity  of  legends  concerning  the  pre- Dorian 
origin  of  Corinth  illustrates  the  hospitality  of  the  Greek 
mind  toward  incompatible  stories.  Ephyre,  daughter 
of  Ocean,  in  Homer  gave  her  name  to  the  city.  Sisy- 
phus, the  son  of  ^olus,  the  son  of  Hellen,  was  intro- 
duced as  founder  in  the  effort  to  trace  historical  devel- 
opment. The  Corinthians  themselves  set  great  store 
by  an  eponymous  hero,  Corinthus,  the  son  of  Zeus. 
Their  reiteration  of  this  exasperating  claim  became 
proverbial  among  the  other  Greeks.  When  the  Aris- 
tophanic  Dionysus  arrives  in  Hades  and  bids  his  ser- 
vant take  up  the  wraps  again  and  carry  them  inside, 
Xanthias  exclaims :  — 

Aye,  pick  'em  up!  now  there  it  goes  again, 
They've  Zeus's  Corinth  in  'em,  that  is  plain! 

Sisyphus  and  his  descendants  owe  a  long  debt  to. the 
poets,  if  posthumous  fame  be  a  recompense  for  vicis- 
situdes. Sisyphus  was  found  by  Odysseus  in  Hades 
in  "strong  torment,"  pushing  a  monstrous  stone  up  the 
hill  only  to  have  it  roll  back  again.  A  great-great-grand- 
son fought  among  the  Lycians  on  Priam's  side  at  Troy 
and,  questioned  by  Diomede  of  his  ancestry,  made  the 


204   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

famous  comparison  which  betrays  the  melancholy 
already  lurking  in  the  youth  of  Hellas :  — 

A5  with  the  leaves'  generations  so  it  is  with  the  pass- 
ing of  mortals.  Some  of  the  leaves  the  wind  strews  on  the 
ground  while  others  the  trees  of  the  forest,  budding  and 
blooming,  put  forth  when  the  spring  cometh  on  in  its  sea- 
son. Thus  with  the  races  of  mortals,  one  blooms  and  an- 
other one  ceases. 

He  also  told  the  story  of  his  grandfather,  Bellerophon 
of  Corinth:  his  refusal  of  a  queen's  love,  his  hard 
labours  in  punishment,  his  rise  to  fame  and  power,  and 
his  ultimate  failure  to  retain  the  favour  of  the  gods,  so 
that  he  ended  his  life  far  from  the  paths  of  men,  devour- 
ing his  own  heart  in  desolate  Cilician  plains.  Pindar 
took  up  the  Homeric  legend  and  shifted  the  emphasis 
to  the  winged  Pegasus,  tamed  by  Bellerophon,  with 
Athena's  aid,  at  Peirene,  the  city  fountain,  and  finally 
stabled  in  the  stalls  of  Olympus,  after  he  had  aided  his 
master  ''from  out  the  desert  bosom  of  the  ether  chill" 
to  "smite  and  slay  the  woman  brood  of  archer  Ama- 
zons, Chimaera  breathing  fire,  and  the  Solymi." 

In  the  history  of  Corinth  two  periods  are  of  special 
interest  and  might  serve  as  the  bases  for  a  study  of 
important  epochs  in  the  larger  history  of  Greece.  These 
periods,  separated  by  more  than  four  hundred  years, 
were  dominated  respectively  by  the  "tyrants"  and  the 
Romans. 

Although  historians  now  avoid  the  restrictive  term 
"age  of  the  despots,"  it  is  true  that  from  the  eighth 


MEGARA  AND   CORINTH  205 

to  the  sixth  centuries  tyrannies  arose  in  Greek  cities 
on  the  Asiatic  coast,  on  the  islands  of  the  ^gean,  and 
in  Greece  proper,  implying  the  same  conditions  of 
public  life.  The  tyranny  of  Corinth,  beginning  with 
Cypselus  in  the  seventh  century  and  ending  with  his 
grandnephew,  Psammetichus,  in  the  sixth,  was  one  of 
the  longest  and  most  notorious.  Any  tyranny  which 
endured  until  the  third  generation  was  remarkable,  for, 
in  spite  of  its  apparent  vigour,  this  form  of  government 
was  suited  to  no  Greek  people.  Everywhere  democracy 
and  oligarchy  were  united  in  hatred  of  an  hereditary 
ruler.  In  Athens  the  short-Hved  despotism  was  itself 
greatly  modified,  and  the  picture  of  the  tyrant  in  Athe- 
nian literature,  in  Plato,  Aristotle,  and  Xenophon,  was 
drawn  from  the  more  violent  models  known  from  the 
histories  of  Corinth  or  Sicyon  or  Miletus,  or  seen  con- 
temporaneously in  Syracuse.  Plato  not  only  as  a  phi- 
losopher but  as  a  Greek  interpreted  the  tyrant's  life  as 
one  of  mental  misery :  "  In  good  truth  he  turns  out  a 
pauper,  if  one  but  knows  how  to  contemplate  the  soul 
in  its  entirety;  and  all  his  life  long  he  is  loaded  down 
with  fear,  all  a-quiver  with  convulsions  and  with  pangs, 
at  least  if  he  is  like  the  disposition  of  the  state  over 
which  he  holds  sway,  .  .  .and  he  must  needs,  by 
reason  of  his  rule,  ever  more  and  more  become  en- 
vious, distrusted,  unjust,  friendless,  unholy,  and  of 
every  vice  the  host  and  nurse ;  and  by  reason  of  all  this 
he  must  first  of  all  become  unhappy  and  then  must 
make  like  to  himself  those  near  him." 


2o6   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

In  Corinth  Periander  was  the  typical  despot,  power- 
ful and  violent,  killing  his  wife  and  earning  the  hatred 
of  his  sons,  overriding  the  sensibilities  of  his  people, 
crushing  the  stronger  and  richer  citizens.  And  yet  by 
masterly  statesmanship,  a  cultivated  taste,  and  careful 
paternalism,  he  brought  about  the  peaceful  prosperity 
which  more  than  one  nation  in  history  has  preferred 
to  liberty,  and  created  a  civilization  in  which  brilliant 
achievement  and  temperate  life  were  not  incompatible. 
At  no  other  time  was  Corinth  so  great  a  city.  In  addi- 
tion to  the  older  colonies  of  Syracuse  and  Corcyra, 
trading  posts  were  obtained  along  the  northwestern 
coast  of  Greece,  controlling  the  commerce  of  the 
Adriatic.  Rivalry  with  the  cities  of  Euboea  and  with 
iEgina  was  succeeded  by  unquestioned  superiority. 
Alliances  were  contracted  in  Asia  Minor  and  in  Egypt. 
At  home  the  enervation  of  luxury  was  guarded  against 
by  sumptuary  laws.  That  some  of  these  outlived  the 
period  may  be  gathered  from  a  fragment  of  the  comic 
poet  Diphilus,  a  contemporary  of  Menander,  in  which, 
apparently,  a  Corinthian  reproaches  a  foreign  spend- 
thrift who  has  come  to  town  and  cornered  the  vegetable 
market  so  that  the  natives  have  to  struggle  for  the 
parsley  as  at  the  Isthmian  games :  — 

'T  is  here  the  law,  good  sir,  with  us  Corinthians, 

If  we  see  anybody  in  the  market-place 

Forever  making  showy  purchases,  to  ask 

On  what  he  lives  ?   By  doing  what  ?  And  then  if  he 

Has  capital  of  which  the  income  balances 

The  outlay,  to  permit  him  to  enjoy  his  mode 


MEGARA  AND  CORINTH  207 

Of  life.   But  if  it  turns  out  that  beyond  his  means 
He's  spending  money,  they  shut  down  on  this  forthwith, 
And  if  he  disobeys,  impose  a  fine.   And  if 
A  man,  possessing  nothing,  lives  expensively 
They  hand  him  over  to  the  executioner! 

Periander  also,  desirous,  as  Aristotle  suggests,  of 
keeping  his  people  too  busy  to  think,  stimulated  the 
artistic  skill  which  they  had  always  possessed.  A  per- 
sistent tradition  has  asserted  that  Corinthian  archi- 
tects at  an  early  date  invented  the  roof- tiles  by  means  of 
which  temple  roofs  could  be  made  to  slope,  thus  form- 
ing the  pediment  or  *' eagle."  The  Temple  of  Apollo 
was  probably  built  at  Periander' s  instigation.  Corin- 
thian workmanship  in  terra-cotta,  wood,  and  metal  was 
famous  from  prehistoric  to  Roman  times.  Periander 
dedicated  at  Olympia  the  chest  (cypsele)  in  which  his 
father  Cypselus  had  been  concealed  in  infancy,  made 
of  cedar  wood,  gold,  and  ivory,  ornately  and  exquisitely 
carved,  in  Pausanias's  time  still  one  of  the  finest  sights 
of  the  place.  No  bronze  was  better  than  that  dipped 
in  Peirene,  and  long  before  the  vases  of  Corinthian 
artists  were  imported  or  stolen  by  Roman  capitaUsts 
they  were  a  part  of  the  conventional  display  of  the 
bon  vivant  in  Athens. 

In  literature  Periander  could  accomplish  little.  The 
absence  of  the  literary  gift  among  the  Corinthians  is 
strikingly  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  name  of  only  one 
native  poet,  Eumelus,  has  been  handed  down  to  us, 
and  that  he  belonged  to  the  ancient  oligarchy  of  the 
eighth  century.  Two  lyric  lines  t^aditionally  assigned 


2o8   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

to  him  survive,  the  only  fragment  of  Corinthian  Htera- 
ture.  Their  imputed  authorship  indicates  that  Eumelus 
was  not  without  fame,  since  the  Doric  Messenians,  even 
less  literary  than  the  Corinthians,  chose  him  to  compose 
a  song  to  Apollo  to  be  sung  by  their  embassy  at  the 
great  Ionian  festival  at  Delos.  But  embedded  in  the 
most  important  Uterature  of  Greece  is  an  element  which 
probably  came  into  life  in  Corinth  under  Periander's 
patronage.  The  choruses  of  the  drama  and  the  so- 
called  dithyrambs  or  Dionysiac  songs  written  by  such 
lyric  poets  as  Pindar,  Simonides,  and  Bacchylides,  seem 
equally  to  go  back  to  some  outgrowth  of  the  stray  wine- 
songs  extemporized  by  revellers.  A  favourite  tradition 
assigned  this  ne\y  form  to  a  poet  called  Arion,  who, 
though  a  Lesbian  by  birth,  "composed,  named,  and 
taught  the  dithyramb  at  Corinth."  Herodotus  adds  a 
story  which  takes  Arion  out  of  the  mists  of  tradition 
and  places  him,  a  sunlit  figure,  on  the  quarter-deck 
of  a  Corinthian  ship  rounding  Cape  Tasnarum  on  its 
way  back  from  Sicily.  He  had  gone  thither  and  made 
money,  and  on  the  return  journey  the  Corinthian  sailors, 
in  whom  he  had  thought  he  could  most  safely  confide, 
gave  him  his  choice  of  killing  himself  outright,  if  he 
wished  a  grave  on  dry  land,  or  of  leaping  overboard 
into  the  Ionian  Sea.  In  this  strait  Arion  "begged  of 
them,  since  such  was  their  determination,  that  they 
would  give  him  leave  to  take  his  stand  dressed  in  his 
full  regalia  on  the  quarter-deck,  and  promised  that  from 
there  he  would  sing  to  them  and  then  would  make 


MEGARA  AND   CORINTH  209 

away  with  himself.  To  the  sailors  it  seemed  a  pleasant 
thing  if  they  might  hear  the  best  of  living  singers,  and 
from  the  stern  they  drew  off  amidships.  And  Arion, 
clad  in  his  full  costume,  took  his  cithara  and,  stationed 
on  the  planking,  went  through  with  the  Orthian  strain, 
and,  when  the  strain  was  concluded,  flung  himself  into 
the  sea,  just  as  he  was,  in  full  costume  dressed.  Now 
the  ship's  crew  sailed  off  to  Corinth,  but  a  dolphin,  as 
they  say,  took  up  Arion  and  carried  him  to  Taenarum 
and  he,  alighting,  went  off,  regalia  and  all,  to  Cor- 
inth and  told,  on  his  arrival,  everything  that  had  be- 
fallen." 

Periander's  successor  was  assassinated  after  a  brief 
reign,  and  the  tyranny  was  succeeded  by  an  aristocracy 
of  merchants.  Corinth  joined  the  Spartan  confederacy, 
and  her  life  continued  to  be  one  of  commerce  and 
peace.  Her  part  in  the  Persian  wars  was  modest,  but 
a  recently  discovered  commemorative  inscription  for 
her  sons  who  died  at  Salamis  is  of  peculiar  interest  as 
an  example  of  the  "many  epitaphs  composed  by  name- 
less authors  in  those  days  of  joy  and  sorrow  in  various 
parts  of  Greece,  all  marked  by  the  simplicity  of  a  great 
age,  whose  reserve,  as  has  been  said  truly,  is  the  pride 
of  strong  men  under  the  semblance  of  modesty."  The 
inscription  runs:  "Salamis  the  isle  of  Ajax  holds  us 
now,  who  once  dwelled  in  the  city  of  Corinth  between 
her  waters."  * 

The  brilliant  and  varied  energies  of  the  Cypselids 

*  Quoted  by  J.  B.  Bury,  History  of  Greece,  p.  284. 


210   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

had  given  way  to  the  dulness  of  habitual  prosperity. 
But  a  light  from  the  past  must  have  seemed  to  shine 
again  upon  Corinth  when  Pindar,  "sailing  a  mere  pri- 
vate in  her  ship  of  state,"  drew  upon  the  wealth  of  all 
her  experiences  in  praising  her  as  the  native  city  of 
an  Olympian  victor :  — 

Therein  dwelleth  Order  and  —  a  sure  foundation  for 
the  state  —  her  sister  Justice,  aye  and  Peace  kin-bred, 
wealth's  stewards  for  mankind. 

Flow'ring  richly,  oft  on  you  the  hours  have  bestowed 
the  splendour  crowning  victory  of  men  preeminent  in  val- 
our at  the  sacred  games,  and  often  in  their  manly  hearts 
inspired  subtleties  of  old.  Whoever  hath  devised,  to  him 
belongs  the  deed.  Whence  came  to  light  the  gracious  gifts 
of  Dionysus  with  the  dithyramb  that  wins  the  ox?  Nay, 
who  set  measured  check  upon  the  harnessed  steeds  or  on 
the  gables  of  the  gods  the  twofold  eagle  spread? 

Thirty-three  years  after  Pindar's  ode  Euripides  pro- 
duced his  "Medea."  This  is  the  only  Attic  drama 
which  has  Corinth  as  its  scene,  and  in  it  the  local  allu- 
sions are  but  vague.  Until  the  writing  of  St.  Paul's 
epistles  no  other  great  literature  concerned  itself  with 
Corinth. 

The  city's  policies  and  life  from  the  Persian  wars 
until  the  battle  of  Chaeronea,  though  dictated  by  its 
trading  interests,  centred  about  the  fortunes  of  Athens, 
Sparta,  and  Thebes.  After  Chaeronea  followed  the 
common  Macedonian  domination.  The  subsequent 
Roman  occupation  of  Corinth  constitutes  the  second 


MEGARA    AND   CORINTH  211 

great  period  of  its  history.  In  146  b.  c.  a  last  effort  at 
rebellion  against  Rome  resulted  in  savage  vengeance 
executed  by  Lucius  Mummius.  Cicero  was  "moved" 
by  the  "ruins"  of  Corinth;  and  Antipater  of  Sidon,  not 
long  after  the  destruction,  bewailed  its  desolation :  — 

Where  is  thy  beauty  exciting  men's  wonder, 
Dorian  Corinth,  and  ramparts  that  crowned  thee? 

Where  are  the  blessed  ones'  columns,  whereunder 
Sisyphid  wives  from  their  dwellings  around  thee 

Came  with  glad  thousands  to  meet  and  to  sunder? 

Bides  not  a  trace  of  thee,  luckless,  devoured, 

Ravaged  of  war!  We  alone  undeflowered, 
Nereids,  halcyons,  daughters  of  Ocean, 
Wait  on  thy  woes  with  our  loyal  devotion. 

The  existence  of  the  temple  of  Periander's  age,  if 
nothing  else,  betrays  the  poet's  exaggeration.  Pau- 
sanias  says  that  the  remarkable  objects  in  the  city  of 
his  day  included  "some  remains  of  ancient  Corinth." 
Most  of  them,  however,  dated  from  the  restoration. 
Julius  Caesar  rebuilt  the  city,  repopulated  it  with  freed- 
men  from  Rome,  and  made  it  the  seat  of  the  proconsul 
of  the  "province  of  Achaea."  Corinth  is  the  proper 
centre  from  which  to  study  the  Romanized  Greek 
world.  In  wealth  the  Roman  city  began  to  equal  and 
to  outstrip  the  Greek  city.  But  the  old  moderation  in 
private  life,  imposed  by  Periander,  was  gone.  The  Ro- 
mans of  the  empire  had  outlived  the  precepts  of  their 
own  republican  Cato,  and  the  riches  easily  acquired 
at  Corinth  enabled  them  to  satisfy  their  coarsened  de- 
sires. Greek  refinement  was  never  native  to  the  masters 


212   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

of  the  world,  and  into  a  nation,  once  satisfied  at  public 
festivals  with  beautiful  processions  and  serious  dramatic 
representations,  were  imported  gladiatorial  shows  and 
all  the  excesses  of  a  brutalized  taste.  The  Greek  Cor- 
inth had  been  regarded  by  the  Athenians  as  rich  and 
immoral.  The  Roman  Corinth  would  have  seemed  to 
Plato  a  cave  filled  with  passion-driven  men  lost  to  the 
sunlight  of  wisdom.  It  was  into  this  Corinth  that  Paul 
came  "in  weakness  and  in  fear  and  in  much  trem- 
bling." 

Acrocorinth  saw  the  Roman  pass  and  the  Byzantine, 
the  Venetian  and  the  Turk.  It  may  again  see  in  "New 
Corinth"  a  powerful  Greek  city.  The  excavations  at 
Old  Corinth  have  uncovered  but  slight  traces  of  the 
successive  centuries  of  robust  living,  but  the  imagina- 
tive observer  will  soon  perceive  the  archaeologist's  suc- 
cess. Although  the  harbours  of  Lechaeum  and  Cen- 
chreae  are  deserted  and  although  the  walls  that  con- 
nected them  with  the  city  are  invisible,  yet  there  are 
traces  of  a  "  paved  street  to  Lechaeum"  with  colonnades 
on  either  side,  to  bring  to  life  again  the  crowds  of  sail- 
ors, merchants,  and  visitors -from  all  parts  of  the  an- 
cient world  who  passed  and  repassed  between  the  city 
and  its  ports.  Aristotle,  with  characteristic  distrust  of 
cosmopolitanism,  questioned  the  political  advantage 
of  such  intercourse,  but  to  Corinth  it  was  the  breath  of 
life. 

The  trade  within  the  city  is  suggested  by  the  traces 
of  "shops"  and  by  the  ruins  of  the  Propylaeum  of  the 


MEGARA  AND   CORINTH  213 

Agora  and  of  fine  colonnades  and  stoas.  Of  buildings 
almost  nothing  remains,  and,  save  for  the  foundations  of 
a  small  unidentified  temple,  the  Temple  of  Apollo  alone 
represents  the  numerous  sacred  precincts  of  ancient 
and  restored  Corinth.  The  partly  excavated  theatre 
recalls  picturesque  stories.  The  Corinthian  theatre  of 
the  sixth  century,  according  to  Plutarch,  was  the  scene 
of  the  discovery  of  the  murderers  of  the  poet  Ibycus, 
an  important  figure  in  the  history  of  Greek  lyric.  A 
native  of  Rhegium,  he  led  an  adventurous  life  in  har- 
mony with  his  passionate  temperament,  and  was  finally 
killed  by  robbers  on  some  lonely  unknown  shore.  In 
dying  he  called  upon  a  flock  of  cranes  above  his  head 
to  avenge  him.  Their  sudden  appearance  over  the 
theatre  at  Corinth  so  startled  the  assassins  that  they 
betrayed  themselves,  and  thus  the  cranes  kept  their 
promise  to  a  poet  who  had  sung  with  equal  ardour  of 
birds  and  flowers  and  of  the  beauty  of  youth.  In  the 
Roman  auditorium,  according  to  a  story  attributed  to 
Lucian,  Nero  had  his  servants  crush  in  with  the  sharp 
edges  of  their  writing  tablets  the  larynx  of  a  popular 
professional  who  had  the  temerity  to  out-sing  the  royal 
amateur. 

Lucian  also  tells  a  delightful  story  connected  with 
the  Craneum  —  Skull  Place  —  a  frequented  suburb 
of  Corinth,  where  Diogenes  the  Cynic  had  set  up  his 
jar  (not  the  "tub"  of  English  tradition).  When  the 
news  came  that  Philip  of  Macedon  was  advancing  on 
the  city,  the  Corinthians,  in  a  fever  of  anxiety,  set  to 


214   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

work  on  their  defences.  Diogenes,  mocking  their  ac- 
tivity, girded  up  his  blanket,  and  with  a  great  show  of 
energy  went  bowling  his  jar  up  and  down  the  Cra- 
neum.  When  some  of  his  intimates  asked  him  "Why 
do  you  do  this,  Diogenes?"  he  said,  "I  too  roll  my  jar 
so  as  not  to  be  the  only  idle  one  among  so  many 
workers." 

The  most  fortunate  result  of  the  excavations  at 
Corinth  was  the  uncovering  of  the  well-house  of  Peirene. 
This  spring,  compared  with  which  the  temple  columns 
are  young,  shared  with  Acrocorinth  the  ancient  soli- 
tude of  the  plain ;  gave  its  waters  to  the  first  nameless 
adventurers  who  made  their  way  from  north  and  east ; 
served  the  city  of  Dorians  and  Romans;  and,  thanks 
to  the  excavators,  is  now  furnishing  a  much-improved 
water-supply  to  the  modern  villagers.  From  Periander 
to  the  Byzantines,  the  grateful  inhabitants  were  ever 
and  again  moved  to  build  for  Peirene  a  suitable  en- 
closure, and  traces  of  six  building  periods  have  been 
discovered.  In  the  fifth  century  b.  c.  the  natural  rock 
was  hewn  into  shape.  Later  generations  added  archi- 
tectural panels,  facades  and  colonnades. 

The  name  Peirene  seems  to  have  belonged  not  only 
to  the  city  fountain  but  also  to  another  spring,  crystal 
clear,  a  little  below  the  summit  of  Acrocorinth,  which, 
like  Hippocrene  on  Helicon,  was  struck  out  by  the  hoof 
of  Pegasus.  In  a  translation  of  Euripides's  ''Trojan 
Women,"  Mr.  Murray  goes  beyond  his  original  in 
specifying  this  upper  Peirene,  vividly  including  in  the 


MEGARA  AND   CORINTH  215 

women's  dread  anticipation  of  their  Greek  slavery  the 
steep  climb  up  Acrocorinth :  — 

"  Or  pitchers  to  and  fro  to  bear 
To  some  Peirene  on  the  hill 
Where  the  proud  water  craveth  still 
Its  broken-hearted  minister." 

Two  Other  fountains  have  also  been  discovered  in 
Corinth,  one  the  spring  of  Glauke,  Medea's  rival,  and 
the  other  an  unnamed  well-house  with  bronze  lion 
heads  still  in  situ.  It  is  no  wonder  that  St.  Clement 
in  his  epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  when  he  enumerated 
the  blessings  of  God,  remembered  especially  the  peren- 
nial fountains,  shaped  for  pleasure  and  health,  which 
give  their  breasts  to  sustain  the  life  of  men. 

The  canal  across  the  Isthmus  recalls  several  periods 
of  Corinth's  history.  Periander  conceived  the  idea  of 
making  a  canal,  inspired  perhaps  by  the  engineering 
marvels  he  had  seen  in  Egypt,  and  probably  the  lack 
of  slave  labour,  rather  than  the  popular  Greek  feeling 
of  impiety,  prevented  him  from  joining  the  "two  seas" 
on  either  side  of  the  narrow  isthmus.  Julius  Caesar 
also  thought  of  undertaking  the  work,  but  Nero  was 
the  first  to  begin  its  execution.  His  vanity  saw  in  it  an 
opportunity  for  dramatic  display.  Suetonius  relates 
that  he  appeared  in  person,  chanted  hymns  in  honour 
of  the  deities  of  the  sea,  and  with  a  golden  pick-axe 
made  a  few  motions  before  the  thousands  of  soldiers 
and  prisoners  who  were  to  do  the  cutting.  Troubles  at 
Rome,  however,  deflected  his  attention,  and  the  making 


2i6   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

of  the  canal  was  left  for  the  French  engineers  of  1881. 
Two  cuttings  made  by  Nero's  workmen  were  still  visi- 
ble when  the  French  began. 

The  absence  of  a  canal  in  antiquity  was  not  so  in- 
convenient as  might  be  supposed,  for  light  ships  could 
be  transferred  on  land  from  one  port  to  another  by 
means  of  a  portage  or  tramway,  of  which  traces  are 
still  visible.  This  "Diolkos"  was  invented  even  before 
the  age  of  the  tyrants,  when  the  Corinthians  were  first 
developing  their  naval  resources.  At  Lechaeum  they 
built  the  first  artificial  harbour,  and  at  its  docks  the 
trireme  was  gradually  perfected  through  the  necessity 
of  protecting  the  slow  and  heavy  merchantmen  by  a 
fighting  convoy.  Thucydides  refers  to  the  Diolkos  in 
describing  the  events  of  412  b.  c,  when  a  general  revolt 
g,gainst  Athens  began  under  Chios.  The  Spartans  had 
sent  word  that  thirty-nine  ships  lying  at  anchor  at 
Lechaeum  must  be  dragged  across  the  Isthmus  as 
quickly  as  possible  to  the  port  on  the  Gulf  of  -^gina 
and  thence  despatched  to  Chios.  Twenty-one  had  been 
transferred  and  were  eager  to  set  sail,  but  the  Corin- 
thians insisted  on  waiting  till  the  Isthmian  Games  had 
been  celebrated.  The  result  was  that  the  Athenians 
who  went  to  the  games  discovered  what  was  going  on 
and  Athens  was  able  to  balk  her  enemies. 

The  Isthmian  Games  were  held  biennially  in  the  Co- 
rinthian territory  less  than  a  mile  southwest  of  the 
little  modern  town  of  Isthmia,  at  the  eastern  end  of 
the  canal.  The  Athenians  frequented  them  especially 


MEGARA   AND   CORINTH  217 

because  they  were  said  to  have  been  instituted  by  The- 
seus. Socrates  visited  them  on  the  only  occasion  of  his 
leaving  Athens  "except  with  the  colours."  The  sacred 
precinct,  excavated  by  the  French,  has  yielded  small 
remains  of  the  temples  and  statues,  theatre  and  stadium, 
and  Pindar's  Isthmian  odes  are  still  the  noblest  me- 
morial of  the  ancient  contests.  In  the  Stadium,  now 
but  a  natural  hollow,  two  dramatic  events  took  place. 
In  336  B.  c.  Alexander  had  himself  proclaimed  leader 
of  the  Greeks  before  his  Persian  expedition,  and  in 
196  B.  c.  Flaminius  announced  to  the  Greeks  their 
"freedom."  It  was  probably  also  here,  at  least  it  was 
at  the  Isthmian  Games,  that  Nero  perpetrated  his 
mocking  renewal  of  Greek  independence. 

In  this  Stadium,  within  reach  of  the  two  seas  which 
had  been  highways  for  wealth  and  luxury,  vigorous 
youths  from  century  to  century  gave  proof  of  restrained 
and  temperate  living.  Even  those  Corinthians  to  whom 
Paul's  preaching  was  "foolishness"  would  be  hospi- 
table to  his  illustration :  — 

"  Know  ye  not  that  they  which  run  in  a  race  run 
all,  but  one  receiveth  the  prize  ?  So  run  that  ye  may 
obtain.  And  every  man  that  striveth  for  the  mastery 
is  temperate  in  all  things.  Now  they  do  it  to  obtain  a 
corruptible  crown,  but  we  an  incorruptible." 


CHAPTER  XI 


DELPHI 


"When  unto  Phoebus'  world -famed  land  we  came, 
Three  radiant  courses  of  the  sun  we  gave 
To  gazing  and  with  beauty  filled  our  eyes." 

Euripides,  Andromache.* 

IF  leisure  is  the  nurse  of  sympathetic  understanding, 
"three  radiant  courses  of  the  sun"  are  none  too 
many  to  give  to  Delphi.  The  inner  meaning  of  this 
centre  of  Greece  needs  not  only  to  be  quarried  out  of 
history  and  literature,  but  also  to  be  garnered  from  the 
abundant  beauty  of  a  landscape  which  created  as  well 
as  framed  a  unique  religious  life. 

At  the  chief  oracular  seat  of  the  God  of  Prophecy 
antiquarian  curiosity  about  its  early  legends  and  prim- 
itive cults  makes  way  for  the  realization  of  Apollo, 
"the  Far- Darter,  ruling  the  glorious  temple  wherein 
all  men  find  welcome."  A  modern  journey  is  a  suc- 
cessor to  the  journeys  and  pilgrimages  undertaken 
through  many  centuries  by  the  men  and  peoples  who 
sought  from  his  omniscience  foreknowledge  and  ad- 
vice. 

Even  the  protagonists  of  shadowy  antiquity  were 
brought  thither  by  their  hopes  and  fears.  Heracles,  the 

'     *  Translated  by  Way. 


DELPHI  219 

national  hero  of  Greece,  driven  by  Hera  to  madness 
and  murder,  asked  at  Delphi  where  he  should  make  his 
home,  and  was  sent  by  the  oracle  to  begin  his  twelve 
labours.  Agamemnon,  anxious  lord  of  the  Greek 
armies,  sought  advice  of  the  god.  lo  was  started  on  her 
long  wanderings  over  the  earth  and  through  literature 
because  her  father  was  commanded  by  Apollo's  min- 
isters to  drive  her  from  her  home  and  her  country. 
Because  of  a  Delphic  response,  the  infant  son  of  Laius 
of  Thebes  was  exposed  on  Mount  Cithaeron.  (Edipus, 
on  the  fatal  day  when  he  killed  Laius,  was  on  his  way 
back  from  Delphi,  whither  he  had  gone  to  ask  if  he 
were  son  of  the  Corinthian  king  who  had  reared  him 
and  where  he  had  received  the  ambiguous  answer  that 
he  was  fated  to  slay  his  father.  It  was  when,  as  king 
of  Thebes,  he  sent  to  "  the  Pythian  house  of  Phoebus 
to  learn  by  what  deed  or  word  he  might  deliver  his 
pestilence-stricken  city"  that  he  unconsciously  invoked 
his  own  doom.  And  it  was  again  the  Delphic  oracle 
which  closed  the  pitiful  story  by  prophesying  CEdipus's 
final  reconciliation  with  the  eternal  will. 

But  these  ancient  demigods  and  kings  move  in  a 
world  only  half  realized  by  us.  Their  dooms  and  their 
emotions  have  the  remote  nobility,  the  superb  univer- 
sality of  the  Attic  drama  through  which  chiefly  they  are 
portrayed.  It  is  in  the  vivacious  pages  of  the  charm- 
ingly pious  Herodotus  that  the  desires  of  living  men 
and  women  seem  to  surge,  in  failure  or  fruition,  about 
the  Delphic  tripod.    From  the  foreign  kingdoms  of 


220   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Asia,  from  Greek  colonies  in  Africa  and  Italy,  from 
rock-bound  island  harbours,  ships  were  constantly 
spreading  sails  at  the  impulse  of  national  distress  or 
personal  ambition,  to  furl  them  in  the  port  that  lay 
below  Delphi.  From  Lacedaemon,  deep  in  the  hol- 
low of  the  southern  hills,  from  Thrace's  widespread 
plains,  swept  by  the  northern  tempests,  from  the  wild 
mountains  of  Arcadia,  from  rich  Corinth  and  bright 
Athens  and  every  other  city  of  Hellas,  men  made  their 
way  in  chariots,  on  mules,  and  on  foot,  to  the  knees  of 
Apollo.  Mountains  and  rivers,  rude  valleys  and  hos- 
tile villages  offered  no  obstacles,  nor  were  the  suppli- 
ants repelled  by  the  "dark  sayings,  dim  and  hard  to 
know,"  which  were  often  their  only  reward.  Kings 
hurried  off  embassies  at  the  first  signs  of  rivalry.  Ad- 
venturers stopped  to  question  the  god  before  carrying 
new  colonies  beyond  the  seas.  Quarrelsome  states  and 
cities  asked  for  advice  in  their  fratricidal  plots.  Wealthy 
cities  desired  to  know  if  they  could  always  count  on 
their  revenues.  Ghost-haunted  towns  asked  the  mean- 
ing of  their  spectres.  Agricultural  communities  were 
eager  to  learn  how  to  restore  dying  crops.  Ambitious 
politicians  sought  encouragement  in  their  pursuit  of 
power.  Sick  men  prayed  for  health,  childless  men  for 
offspring.  Indeed,  to  the  irreverent  the  Pythian  priest- 
ess must  often  have  seemed  to  carry  a  load  of  oracles 
as  jumbled  as  that  of  Aristophanes's  sausage  seller  who 
came  staggering  into  the  market-place  at  Athens  with 
"responses"  to  sell,— 


DELPHI  221 

Full  of  Athenians,  and  of  lentil-porridge  too; 
Of  Spartans;  of  fresh  tunny  fish;  and  of  the  men 
Who  in  the  market  measure  false  the  barley-groats; 
Of  you;  of  me,  and  of  affairs  in  general. 

But  Aristophanes  himself  was  at  heart  as  conserva- 
tive a  believer  in  religion  as  Herodotus  had  been.  And 
to  piety  like  theirs,  existing  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion, was  due  the  position  that  Delphi  held  not  only  as 
a  source  of  knowledge  but  as  the  conscience  of  Greece. 
Sometimes  in  public  affairs  this  conscience  seemed  to 
recommend  prudence  rather  than  righteousness,  as  in 
the  wretched  advice  distributed  at  the  time  of  the  Per- 
sian invasion.  In  private  affairs,  such  as  athletics  or 
the  use  of  trust  money,  the  oracle  was  always  on  the 
side  of  honour. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  along  with  the  wide- 
spread acceptance  of  the  oracular  responses  went  a 
rationalizing  independence  of  judgment  which  some- 
times overruled  the  religious  instinct.  Cases  of  obsti- 
nate self-seeking  in  spite  of  the  plain  injunction  of  the 
god  betray  the  exercise  of  this  judgment  on  a  low  plane. 
But,  soiled  though  it  sometimes  was  by  ignoble  use, 
the  mental  independence  of  the  Athenians,  at  least, 
was  a  magnificent  possession.  It  saved  Hellas  when 
Crete  and  Argos  and  all  the  lesser  brood  followed  the 
prudent  warnings  from  Delphi.  It  chose  an  uneven 
fight  for  national  freedom  in  the  very  face  of  the 
accepted  conscience  of  the  whole  Greek  world.  Only 
an  understanding  of  the  noblest  aspects  of  the  r6Ie 


222   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

played  by  the  Delphic  oracle  in  Greek  history  and  life 
can  throw  into  sufficiently  high  relief  the  splendid 
revolt  of  Athens,  when  Persia  threatened  her  liberty, 
against  an  ecclesiastical  authority  which  had  become 
debased.  The  historian  who  is  the  best  guide  to  a  duti- 
ful belief  in  Pythian  Apollo  tells  the  story  with  im- 
plicit sympathy:  "Not  even  the  terrifying  oracles  that 
came  from  Delphi  and  plunged  them  into  fear  per- 
suaded them  to  abandon  Hellas.  They  plucked  up 
courage  to  await  the  invader  of  their  land." 

Nor  is  there  here  any  inconsistency.  The  faithful 
in  all  religions  have  refused  to  identify  the  sins  and 
follies  of  the  priests  with  the  will  of  the  gods.  The  Per- 
sians might  intimidate  or  buy  the  ministers  of  Apollo. 
The  Alcmaeonidae,  exiled  from  Athens,  might  bribe 
them  to  do  their  selfish  will.  Cleomenes  of  Sparta 
might  purchase  his  throne  from  them.  But  the  pious 
had  always  the  refuge  created  by  Sophocles  for  locasta 
when  she  declared  the  oracle  was  false :  "It  came  not 
from  Phoebus  but  from  his  servants."  When  the  Per- 
sians had  been  defeated,  Athens,  on  the  flood  tide  of 
victory,  freedom,  and  power,  raised  noble  memorials 
of  her  struggle  in  the  sacred  precinct  of  the  oracle 
which  had  advised  her  not  to  fight.  When  the  modern 
traveller  has  brought  himself  to  see  that  this  was  not 
done  in  grim  humour  but  in  unbewildered  piety,  he  is 
ready  to  undertake  his  own  journey  to  Delphi. 

Of  all  the  possible  approaches  none  can  be  happier 
than  a  drive  on  a  moonlight  night  up  from  the  little 


DELPHI  225 

port  of  Itea,  the  inglorious  terminus  of  the  eight  hours' 
sail  from  Piraeus  through  the  canal  and  along  the  Gulf 
of  Corinth.  The  comfortable  carriage  road  winds 
through  the  "moon-blanched"  olive  orchards  and 
vineyards  of  the  ancient  Crisaean  plain,  mounting 
gradually  toward  the  steep  slopes  of  Parnassus  and  its 
attendant  mountains,  and  twisting  in  long  courses 
among  shadowy  hillsides  which  only  hint  at  rude  crags 
and  deep  ravines.  Perhaps  it  was  some  such  night  as 
this  that  led  the  writer  of  the  Homeric  Hymn  to  Artemis 
to  see  the  sister  of  Apollo,  "slackening  her  fair-curved 
bow  and  going  to  the  mighty  hall  of  Phoebus  in  the 
Delphians'  rich  deme  and  arraying  there  the  Muses' 
and  the  Graces'  lovely  dance."  The  exquisite  grace 
of  the  landscape,  half  hidden,  half  revealed  through 
the  fragile  veil  of  silver  light,  seems  like  a  gentle  prepa- 
ration for  the  epiphany,  expected  on  the  morrow,  of 
the  god  of  the  golden  blade. 

The  carriage  leaves  very  soon  the  road  to  Amphissa, 
the  capital  of  modern  Phocis  as  of  ancient  Locris,  and 
an  hour  later  halts,  to  rest  the  horses,  at  a  dim  corner 
of  the  village  of  Chryso,  a  name  which  preserves  that 
of  the  Crisa  of  antiquity.  All  this  drowsy  territory 
has  been  the  stage  of  one  of  the  significant  dramas  of 
history.  The  modern  demarch  hospitably  presses  water 
from  the  village  fountain  upon  modern  wayfarers,  but 
the  Crisaeans  once  used  their  strategic  position  as  own- 
ers of  the  whole  wide  plain  to  plunder  pilgrims  on  their 
way  to  the  shrine.  This  evil  monopoly  gave  way,  early 


224   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

in  the  sixth  century,  to  the  powerful  confederation  of 
twelve  Greek  states,  known  as  the  Delphic  Amphic- 
tyony,  whose  representatives  met  at  Delphi  twice  a 
year  and  ruled  the  affairs  of  the  sacred  domain.  Dur- 
ing almost  one  hundred  and  fifty  years,  with  unques- 
tioned right,  whatever  internecine  wars  were  in  progress, 
delegates  frohi  Thessaly  and  Boeotia,  from  Athens  and 
Sparta,  from  Phocis  itself  and  from  other  lesser  states 
could  pass  and  repass  through  Crisa,  while  the  fertile 
plain  went  untilled.  Even  after  war  invaded  the  pro- 
tected territory  the  existence  of  the  Council  was  not 
endangered.  But  the  constitution  of  the  delegates 
changed  with  the  fortunes  of  battles.  By  the  middle 
of  the  fourth  century  the  Phocians  were  struck  from 
the  list  and  the  Macedonians  added.  Philip  had  be- 
come the  chief  actor,  seizing  his  opportunity  when 
the  men  of  Delphi,  at  the  instigation  of  the  Athenian 
delegate,  ^Eschines,  attacked  the  men  of  Amphissa 
because  they  were  turning  the  consecrated  wilderness 
of  the  plain  into  corn-fields  and  olive  groves  and  filling 
up  the  empty  places  with  prosperous  houses  and  busy 
little  potteries.  A  series  of  easy  steps  led  to  the  over- 
throw of  Greek  freedom. 

But  under  the  compassionate  moon  the  sentimental- 
ist continues  his  way,  in  wilful  oblivion  of  the  catas- 
trophe of  the  drama,  to  the  point  nearest  ancient  Delphi. 
This  is  the  tiny  village  of  Kastri,  which  less  than  twenty 
years  ago  was  plying  its  life  on  the  unconscious  surface 
of  earth  spread  over  the  ruins  of  the  sacred  site.   Ac 


DELPHI  225 

great  expense  of  money  and  trouble  it  was  picked  up 
by  the  French  excavators  and  deposited,  safe  and 
whole,  a  little  farther  to  the  west  around  the  sharp 
corner  of  the  mountain,  where,  in  fear  of  slipping  into 
the  deep  valley  below,  it  curls  close  to  Parnassus's  side. 
Here  lodgings  may  be  obtained  either  in  a  conventional 
hostelry  or,  preferably,  in  a  low-eaved  peasant  house, 
where  on  cool  nights  a  wood  fire  glows  in  a  big  stone 
fireplace  and  the  light  of  candles  is  eked  out  by  diminu- 
tive copper  lamps  which  would  have  seemed  primitive 
to  Agamemnon. 

The  popular  time  for  ancient  pleasure-seekers  to  visit 
Delphi  was  in  the  middle  of  August,  when  games  were 
held  in  honour  of  Apollo.  At  that  season,  if  ever,  the 
slopes  and  peaks  of  Parnassus  were  accessible,  but 
the  burning  heat  as  the  rocks  reflected  the  sun's  rays, 
alternating  with  heavy  thunderstorms  as  the  wind 
rushed  up  from  the  valley,  must  have  modified  the 
comfort  of  visitors.  In  the  spring  the  modern  traveller 
will  find  an  equable  and  pleasant  climate.  And  also, 
prepared  as  he  may  be  for  the  solemnity  and  the  lonely 
grandeur  of  the  scenery  about  Delphi,  he  will  discover 
unanticipated  qualities  in  the  landscape  which  are 
illuminative  of  certain  elements  in  the  significance  of 
the  place.  A  walk  along  the  highway  that  leads  from 
Kastri  to  and  through  the  ruined  precinct  reveals  both 
the  expected  and  the  new.  Toward  the  southwest  lies 
the  Crisasan  plain  filled  with  olive  groves.  Beyond  its 
gray-green  breadth  gleams  the  Corinthian  Gulf  with 


226   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

the  far-off  mountains  of  Arcadia  girding  the  horizon. 
Directly  in  the  west  the  snow-capped  mountains  of 
Locris,  the  highest  in  Central  Greece,  fret  the  sky. 
Southeastward  plunges  the  valley  of  Delphi,  formed 
by  Mount  Parnassus  on  the  north  and  by  Mount 
Cirphis  on  the  south,  and  watered  by  the  river  Plistus 
which  in  a  long  line  of  gleaming  argent  seeks  its  west- 
erly home  in  the  bay  of  Itea. 

The  valley  of  the  Plistus  lies  in  full  sight  after  the 
Crisaean  plain  and  the  gulf  beyond  it  have  been  blotted 
out  by  a  turn  in  the  road  which  leads  sharply  around 
a  large,  rocky  ridge,  the  barrier  between  the  new  town 
and  the  old.  This  ridge  formed  the  western  wall  that 
isolated  Delphi  in  lonely  remoteness  between  the  bare 
steep  rocks  of  Cirphis  and  the  cliffs  of  massive  Par- 
nassus, which  spreads  its  huge  buttresses  over  the  sur- 
rounding country.  Rising  two  thousand  feet  above  the 
level  of  the  sea,  these  cliffs  present  a  magnificent  ex- 
panse of  gray  and  red  limestone,  and  still  reflect  the 
brilliant  morning  sun,  true  to  their  ancient  name  of 
the  ''Shining  Rocks."  Where  they  bend  around,  in 
their  long  course,  a  deep  gorge  is  formed  from  which 
the  storied  spring  of  Castalia  still  issues.  Above  the 
gorge,  invisible  when  one  stands  under  the  cliffs  but 
conspicuous  from  lower  levels,  rise  twin  peaks,  seeking 
a  proud  supremacy. 

Superb  mountains,  precipitous  cliffs,  deep  ravines, 
lonely  valley,  all  are  here.  But  here  too,  softening, 
transfiguring,  some  unforeseen  influence  is  at  work. 


DELPHI  227 

Over  the  mountains  a  friendly,  familiar  sunshine  casts 
a  gentle  glamour.  Olive  trees  fearlessly  silver  the  long 
slopes  that  stretch  from  the  shining  rocks  to  the  glisten- 
ing river.  In  jocund  profusion,  tripping  through  the 
valley  and  climbing  up  the  steep  places,  pink  and  white 
almond  trees  flower  like  blushing  dryads.  The  Far- 
Darter  has  chosen  this  hour  to  lay  aside  his  bow.  No 
longer  does  he  come,  — 

angered  in  heart,  with  his  bow  on  his  shoulders  and  close- 
covered  quiver,  while  in  his  anger  the  shafts  on  his  shoulders 
are  clanging,  and  like  to  the  Night  is  his  coming, — 

but  he  lifts  the  "golden  lyre"  that  quencheth  even  the 
lightning  spear,  the  bolt  of  Zeus' s  immortal  fire. 

Or  perhaps  Apollo  has  abdicated  for  a  time  and  it 
is  Dionysus  who  is  concealing  the  terror  of  the  oracle 
beneath  the  sparkling  audacity  of  spring.  For  the  wor- 
ship of  this  multiform  god  had  a  strong  hold  on  Delphi, 
and  the  "beat  of  his  unseen  feet"  as  he  was  wont  to 
lead  his  Maenads  in  furious  dance  among  the  uplands 
of  Parnassus  echoes  through  Greek  poetry.  According 
to  one  set  of  legends,  Dionysus  was  the  first  to  hold 
the  oracle.  According  to  another,  Apollo  regularly  de- 
parted for  three  months  each  year,  leaving  the  more 
fiery  god  of  inspiration  in  charge  of  the  sacred  tripod. 
In  any  case  the  relation  between  the  divine  brothers 
seems  to  have  been  very  amicable.  An  old  vase-paint- 
ing represents  them  as  affectionately  shaking  hands 
under  a  palm  tree. 


228   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

The  scene  of  the  Dionysiac  revels  was  the  broad 
table-land  which  lies,  more  than  three  thousand  feet 
above  the  level  of  the  sea,  between  the  Shining  Rocks 
and  the  peaks  of  Parnassus.  Here  amid  the  wooded 
ravines  and  open  meadows  the  flashing,  flowing  Diony- 
sus, god  of  all  ardent  life,  lord  of  the  ichor  of  spring, 
held  one  of  his  many  courts.  It  is  significant  of  the 
unparalleled  inclusiveness  of  Greek  ideals  that  not 
only  on  ''the  topmost  heights  of  Caucasus"  and  in 
the  "vales  of  Lydia,"  but  also  above  Apollo's  temple 
where  were  inscribed  in  letters  of  gold  the  maxims  of 
the  seven  sages,  "Know  thyself"  and  "Nothing  too 
much,"  the  god  of  mad  impulse  and  unchartered  free- 
dom should  have  been  seen  to  leap  and  dance,  and  give 
"  to  his  female  followers  the  note  for  the  Bacchic  tune." 
Every  two  years,  "when  spring  flashed  out  for  the  first 
time"  and  sorrow  might  be  swallowed  up  in  joy,  a 
torch  festival  was  held  in  his  honour  by  women  of  the 
surrounding  country.  Even  from  Attica  women  made 
their  way  to  join  in  the  celebration,  travelling  over  the 
same  "Sacred  Way"  by  which  the  Athenians  periodi- 
cally sent  their  offerings  to  Delphi,  and  which  Apollo 
had  taken  on  his  civilizing  march  through  the  wild 
places  of  men,  escorted  with  great  reverence  by  the 
road-making  people  of  Athens.  The  passionate  desire 
for  the  mad  nocturnal  revels  which  awaited  the  Bac- 
chantes at  the  end  of  their  long  journey  was  attributed 
by  Euripides,  who  must  often  have  seen  the  procession 
starting  out  from  Athens,  toTyrian  women  on  their  way 


DELPHI  229 

to  the  service  of  Phoebus  at  Delphi.  Detained  in  Thebes 
by  the  civil  war  of  CEdipus's  sons,  they  tease  their  im- 
aginations with  visions  of  the  rock  that  flasheth  a  splen- 
dour of  light  and  the  cloven  tongue  of  the  torches'  flame, 
of  the  vine  that  each  morning  offers  up  its  giant  cluster 
to  brim  the  cup  of  the  mystic  ritual,  of  the  snow-smitten, 
lonely  ridges  where,  with  souls  unafraid,  they  might 
be  wreathing  the  happy  dance.* 

But  mortal  women  were  not  the  only  companions  of 
Dionysus.  The  exuberant  play  of  nature,  the  change 
from  death  to  life  as  winter  made  way  for  spring,  not 
only  goaded  human  hearts  with  a  divine  torture,  but 
peopled  the  hills  with  lithe  nymphs  of  untouched  soul, 
rollicking  with  Pan  and  even  with  the  greater  god 
.  whose  joy,  to  spirits  touched  to  finer  issues,  was  more 
terrible  than  sweet.  Pan  and  the  nymphs  had  their 
special  dwelling-place  in  the  Corycian  Cave,  which 
Pausanias  mentions  as  one  of  the  four  most  famous 
caverns  of  the  whole  world,  "among  a  total  number 
past  finding  out."  It  was  certainly  the  most  remark- 
able one  in  Greece,  a  country  abounding  in  "caves 
that  open  upon  the  beach  or  in  the  deep  sea,"  and  in 
mountain  caverns  due  to  the  frequent  honeycombing 
by  earthquake  and  subterranean  currents.  Called 
Sarantavli,  the  Forty  Chambers,  it  lies  about  seven 
miles  northeast  of  Delphi,  near  the  top  of  one  of  the 
low  hills  that  form  the  northern  boundary  of  the  Par- 
nassian uplands.    The  grudging  daylight  penetrates 

*  Cf.  Way's  translation  of  the  Phceniss(B,  219  ff. 


230   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

the  greater  chamber.  This  has  slender  stalactites 
hanging  from  the  roof  at  both  ends,  and  at  the  inner 
end  stalagmites  rise  from  the  ground  to  meet  them. 
The  inner  spaces,  lying  in  darkness,  must  be  reached 
through  narrow  passages  over  wet  and  slippery  stalag- 
mites. At  the  mouth  of  the  cave  an  inscription  was 
found  containing  a  dedication  to  Pan  and  the  nymphs. 
Certainly  a  fit  abode  for  divine  embodiments  of  soul- 
less nature  was  this  vaulted,  echoing  grotto,  whose 
cavernous  mouth  opens  upon  the  widespread  beauty 
of  an  untamed  world.  ^Eschylus  may  have  seen  the 
''Corycian  Rock"  or  he  may  have  trusted  to  the  eyes 
of  others  in  describing  its  hollow  loneliness, "  the  home 
of  birds,  and  the  resort  of  deities." 

If  it  is  difficult  to  disentangle  the  myths  which  con- . 
nect  several  gods  with  one  place,  it  is  still  more  difficult 
to  understand  the  legends  which  hint  at  the  infinite 
complexity  of  each  god  in  any  one  of  his  own  several 
spheres.  In  studying  the  Delphic  Apollo,  the  clear 
outlines  of  the  great  god  as  he  governed  the  Greek 
world  will  best  be  preserved  by  noticing  those  stories 
which  have  been  preferred  by  the  poets.  It  was  natural 
that  iEschylus  should  penetrate  beyond  any  individual- 
ized form  of  divine  activity  to  primeval  forces,  follow- 
ing the  legend  which  made  Apollo  a  late  heir  to  the  first 
owners  of  the  oracle,  to  Earth  herself  and  to  her  daugh- 
ter, holy  Law.  It  was  equally  characteristic  that  Euripi- 
des, with  his  eye  for  vivid  detail,  should  have  been 
attracted  by  the  story  which  begins  with  Leto's  golden- 


DELPHI  231 

haired  son  coming  from  the  fruitful  meadows  of  his 
birthplace,  Delos,  to  the  Dionysus-haunted  summit 
of  Parnassus.  Under  its  shadow,  amid  the  thick-leaved 
laurel,  lay  as  guardian  of  the  holy  place  a  dragon  with 
gleaming  talons.  This  horrid  monster  the  young  god 
slew,  thereafter  taking  his  seat  upon  the  golden  tripod. 
Earth,  appearing  only  as  the  mother  of  the  dragon, 
sought  to  wrest  from  him  the  right  of  prophecy.  But, 
swift  of  foot,  he  fled  to  Olympus  and  the  throne  of  Zeus, 
and  the  king  of  the  gods  laughed  and  shook  his  awful 
hair  and  gave  to  his  youthful  son  in  perpetuity  the 
sovereignty  over  the  Delphic  abode. 

The  Homeric  Hymn  to  Apollo,  which  contains  the 
oldest  account  of  the  killing  of  the  dragon,  also  relates 
that  the  god  chose  Cretans  to  be  his  first  ministers. 
Whatever  the  historical  basis  of  this  story  may  be,  its 
telling  gives  the  riotous  Ionian  poet  a  chance  to  trans- 
form Phoebus  Apollo  into  a  dolphin  deflecting  from 
its  course  a  swift  ship  sent  out  from  Cretan  Cnossus  to 
Pylos  on  the  border  of  the  Ionian  Sea.  The  dolphin 
caused  it  to  traverse  strange  waters,  beyond  Pelopon- 
nesus and  the  ford  of  Alpheus,  past  the  steep  ridge 
of  Ithaca  and  wooded  Zacynthus,  into  the  harbour  of 
Crisa.  Here  the  dolphin  disappeared  and  the  god  leaped 
from  the  ship  in  the  guise  of  a  star  at  high  noon,  while 
sparks  of  frequent  fire  flew  from  him  and  flash  of  splen- 
dour reached  the  sky.  On  shore  he  appeared  as  a  man, 
lusty  and  strong,  and  persuaded  the  Cretans  to  dance 
in  his  train  and  to  take  charge  of  the  temple.   By  sug- 


232   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

gesting  that  they  might  use  for  themselves  the  flocks 
brought  for  sacrifice,  he  overcame  their  fear  that  they 
would  fare  but  meagrely  in  a  country  neither  vine-bear- 
ing nor  rich  in  meadows. 

The  story  of  the  hymn  is  too  confused  to  be  worthy 
of  Apollo.  He  was  no  music-hall  performer,  making 
lightning  transformations,  but  lord,  in  simplicity  and 
dignity,  of  music  and  all  harmonies,  elder  brother 
and  guide  in  the  paths,  of  conduct.  So  at  least  he  re- 
veals himself  on  a  spring  morning  beneath  the  Shining 
Rocks  lit  by  his  sunlight  from  the  south. 

But  homelier  memories  also  come  to  life.  It  may 
have  been  in  the  "  fragrant  dawn"  of  a  day  like  this  that 
the  boy  Odysseus,  while  he  was  on  a  visit  to  his  grand- 
father, went  hunting  with  his  uncles  in  the  windy  hol- 
lows of  wood-clad  Parnassus  and  killed  a  great  bpar. 
From  its  white  tusks  he  had  received  a  wound  which 
was  to  leave  an  indelible  scar  and  years  later  betray 
his  identity  to  his  aged  nurse.  Certainly  it  must  have 
been  on  such  a  morning  that  another  boy.  Ion  the 
acolyte,  was  performing  his  early  tasks  for  the  temple 
when  visitors  from  Athens  arrived  to  question  him 
about  the  sights.  They  were  women  who  had  accom- 
panied the  queen  Creusa  when  she  and  her  husband, 
like  many  others,  came  to  Delphi  in  their  childlessness. 
In  her  youth,  before  her  marriage  to  Xuthus,  she  had 
been  loved  by  Apollo  and  had  borne  him  a  son  in  his 
cave  below  the  Athenian  Acropolis.  The  baby  had  been 
abandoned  by  her,  but  a  servant  had  carried  it  to  Delphi 


DELPHI  233 

and  left  it  as  a  foundling  with  the  priestess.  Unknown 
to  Creusa,  he  had  grown  into  the  boyish  minister  of  his 
divine  father.  The  plot  of  the  Euripidean  drama  which 
uses  the  story  is  sensational,  including  attempted  mur- 
ders and  many  complications  before  mother  and  child 
recognize  and  accept  each  other.  But  the  boy  Ion  is  one 
of  the  happiest  creations  of  a  poet  whom  Aristophanes 
accused  of  skepticism.  His  unstained  youth  consecrates 
his  daily  work  of  sweeping  the  temple  floor,  adorning 
the  doorway  with  fresh  wreaths  and  laurel  boughs  and 
driving  away  the  wild  pigeons.  Reared  by  a  holy  wo- 
man in  the  remote  quiet  of  the  sanctuary,  he  has  become 
a  vessel,  crystal  clear,  to  hold  the  purest  essence  of  re- 
ligious feeling.  His  morning  hymn  reflects  the  unspoiled 
reverence  with  which,  among  the  greedy  hordes,  many 
must  have  turned  to  Delphi :  — 

Lo!  the  radiant  Sun,  his  four  horses  a-span! 

Now  with  splendour  his  car  flingeth  light  o'er  the  earth, 

And  the  stars  from  the  sky  at  this  dazzle  of  fire 

Flee  for  refuge  and  hide  in  the  temple  of  Night, 

And  inviolate  peaks  of  Parnassus  are  lit 

As  they  welcome  the  Day's  car  for  mortals. 
And  the  wilderness  myrrh  to  Apollo's  high  roof 
Curls  fragrant  and  dim, 

And  from  tripod  divine  now  the  Delphian  dread 
For  the  Hellenes  intones  with  oracular  cries 

What  Apollo  proclaims  from  his  portals. 

Up,  ye  Delphians  all  who  to  Phoebus  give  aid! 

To  Castalian  fount  with  its  silvery  whirl 

Go,  wash  ye,  be  cleansed  in  its  pure  running  stream, 

And  enter  the  shrine, 

Your  lips  guarding  well,  that  in  silence  refrained, 


234   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Or  with  words  that  are  good,  you  interpret  his  voice 

Unto  those  who  his  counsels  would  follow. 
While  I  '11  serve  at  the  tasks  which  from  childhood  are  mine 
And  with  consecrate  wreaths  and  with  branches  of  bay 
I  will  make  the  ways  pure  to  Apollo  within. 

For  a  motherless  child  and  unfathered'  I  dwell 
As  a  ministrant  here  in  the  fostering  care 
Of  the  temple  of  Phoebus  Apollo. 

This  unstudied  rapture  is  interrupted  by  the  worldly 
women,  exclaiming  over  the  wonderful  sculptured  me- 
topes of  the  temple.  Euripides,  with  the  usual  license 
of  the  Greek  dramatists,  put  before  his  legendary 
characters  the  works  of  art  that  he  himself  might  have 
seen  in  the  latter  part  of  the  fifth  century  before  Christ, 
when  a  rich  civic  and  artistic  life  was  occupying  the 
stage  of  the  vast  theatre  into  which,  as  Strabo  observed, 
Nature  had  moulded  the  site  of  Delphi.  The  semi- 
circular valley  opens  only  on  the  east,  and  from  it  ter- 
races, like  tiers  of  seats,  rise  from  the  Plistus  to  Parnas- 
sus. The  ancient  city  of  Delphi  lay  in  two  portions 
along  the  base  of  the  Shining  Rocks.  The  modern  high- 
road approximately  marks  the  division  between  the 
upper  terraces,  which  held  the  sacred  precinct,  and 
the  lower,  where  were  the  houses  and  business  buildings 
of  the  jJermanent  inhabitants,  and  also,  east  of  Casta- 
lia,  a  few  temples  and  other  public  structures.  It  is  the 
upper  terraces,  west  of  Castalia,  which  enchain  our  at- 
tention, although  all  that  is  left  even  here,  save  for  the 
small  reerected  Treasury  of  the  Athenians,  made  of 
Parian  marble,  are  remnants  of  walls,  low-lying  founda- 


DELPHI  235 

tions,  traces  of  pavement,  broken  bases,  and  pieces  of 
graven  stone.  But  they  represent  sacred  ways  and 
buildings,  monuments  and  statues  which  made  glo- 
rious one  of  the  richest  centres  of  Greece,  from  long 
before  the  time  of  Euripides  to  the  destructive  epoch 
of  Nero  and  beyond.  Delphi  became  the  pride  of  the 
Macedonians  as  it  had  been  of  the  Athenians  and 
the  Spartans,  and  under  their  sovereignty  the  Delphic 
Amphictyony  continued  and  the  oracle  was  the  centre 
of  the  new  widespread  Hellenic  world.  The  Gauls 
attacked  Delphi  in  the  third  century  b.  c.  as  vainly 
as  the  Persians  had  attacked  it  in  the  fifth  century. 
Even  the  ruthlessness  of  Rome  brought  no  immediate 
destruction.  iEmilius  Paulus,  the  final  conqueror  of 
Macedon,  set  up  near  Apollo's  temple,  in  the  most  con- 
spicuous place  of  the  entire  precinct,  a  monument  to 
his  victory.  Even  Nero  seems  to  have  wished  to  repair 
the  temple,  but  the  story  that  he  afterwards  tore  it  down 
because  of  an  oracular  response  which  reflected  upon  his 
moral  character  is  at  least  hen  trovato.  He  di^ided  the 
Crisaean  plain  among  his  soldiers  and  carried  off  an 
enormous  number  of  statues  from  Delphi.  But  a  still 
greater  number  was  left,  and  the  glory  of  the  god's 
dwelling  place  had  not  vanished.  Under  Hadrian,  the 
imperial  apostle  of  culture,  new  treasures  were  added, 
and  a  little  later  Pausanias  saw  more  than  he  could  de- 
scribe. It  was  not  until  two  more  centuries  had  passed 
that  the  oracle  itself  with  one  last  cry  became  dumb 
forever.    To  the  ambassador  of  Julian  the  Apostate, 


236   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

who  was  seeking  advice  in  his  wars  with  the  Persians, 
the  message  was  given :  — 

Say  to  the  King  now  that  levelled  to  earth  is  the  temple  of  splen- 
dour, 

Phoebus  no  more  has  a  roof  for  his  head  nor  the  laurel  prophetic; 

Gone  is  the  voice  of  the  fountain  and  dried  is  the  chattering 
water. 

Theodosius  put  a  formal  end  to  the  Delphic  cult  as  well 
as  to  the  Olympic  games. 

From  Apollo's  slaying  of  the  earth-bom  dragon  to 
the  Byzantine  emperor's  destruction  of  the  oracle  is  a 
long  stretch  of  centuries.  Within  them  fell  the  brilliant 
epochs  which  filled  Delphi  with  the  opulence  of  all 
the  arts.  As  Greek  and  barbarian  brought  hither  their 
well-wrought  schemes  and  passionate  desires,  so  they 
brought  also,  in  offerings  to  the  god,  their  best  skill  in 
architecture  and  sculpture  and  painting,  their  rarest 
workmanship  in  marble  and  bronze  and  gold  and 
silver.  Ghostly  proofs  of  the  existence  of  some  of  these 
offerings  the  French  excavators  have  within  twenty 
years  evoked  from  the  reluctant  soil.  Gallic  precision 
and  insight  have  even  made  of  ruined  walls  and  broken 
stones  an  orderly  array  easily  perceived  by  the  traveller 
who  is  patient  enough  to  follow  his  guidebook.  The 
Museum  supplements  the  ground  foundations  by  sev- 
eral important  sculptural  details. 

There  were  many  localities  and  objects  made  holy 
by  legendary  associations,  like  the  tomb  of  Neoptole- 
mus,  Achilles's  red-haired  son,  whose  murder  is  de- 


DELPHI  237 

scribed  by  Euripides  and  whose  quadrennial  worship 
brought  crowds  of  ThessaHans  to  Delphi ;  or  like  the 
marble  Omphalos,  or  navel  stone,  flanked,  in  Pindar's 
day,  by  golden  eagles  which  marked  the  meeting  place 
of  the  winged  explorers  sent  east  and  west  by  Zeus  in 
search  of  the  exact  centre  of  the  earth.  But  of  para- 
mount importance  in  the  religious  life  of  Delphi  was 
the  Temple  of  Apollo,  built  above  the  deep  cleft  in  the 
ground  that  held  the  sacred  spring  of  prophecy.  The 
Priestess  sat  upon  a  tripod  in  the  adyton  or  holy  of 
holies,  directly  over  the  fissure  from  which  a  natural 
vapour  issued,  and  her  ravings  were  transmitted  by  the 
priests  in  ambiguous  hexameters.  The  site  of  the  first 
primitive  temple  was  preserved,  but  upon  it  rose  suc- 
cessive structures.  The  temple  that  was  seen  by  He- 
rodotus and  Thucydides,  by  Pindar,  by  iEschylus  and 
Euripides  was  built  in  the  latter  half  of  the  sixth  century 
to  replace  an  older  one  destroyed  by  fire.  In  the  fourth 
century  an  earthquake  necessitated  still  another,  and 
it  is  to  this  one  that  the  existing  foundations  are  attrib- 
uted, although  fragments  of  the  other  are  not  wanting. 
Owing  to  the  shifting  history  of  the  fourth  century, 
this  temple  was  long  in  building  and  was  not  yet  com- 
pleted when  Demosthenes  thundered  out  his  scorn  that 
the  barbarian  of  Macedon  had  assumed  the  "honours 
of  the  temple, "  to  which  even  all  the  Greeks  could  not 
pretend.  The  work  had  been  undertaken  by  an  inter- 
national commission,  and  inscriptional  records  of  the 
contributions  are  richly  suggestive  of  the  private  life 


238   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

of  the  times.  Many  individuals  and  some  states  pro- 
mised first  fruits.  An  actor  and  a  physician  of  Athens 
sent  a  tithe  of  their  earnings.  Among  individuals  the 
Peloponnesians  were  the  most  pious,  although  contri- 
butions straggled  in  from  Attica,  Boeotia,  Northern 
Greece,  the  islands,  Africa,  and  Sicily.  Collectors  went 
from  house  to  house,  and  by  far  the  larger  number  of 
contributors  gave  no  more  than  a  drachma.  Doubtless 
in  many  cases  this  modesty  was  due  to  poverty  rather 
than  to  indiJEference,  and  the  religious  sentiment  prompt- 
ing the  gifts  must  often  have  been  comparable  to  that 
which  reared  the  arches  and  illuminated  the  windows 
of  the  Cathedral  of  Chartres.  For  the  sake  of  such  con- 
tributors one  could  wish  that  after  the  Roman  restora- 
tions the  Delphic  temple  had  not  been  allowed  to  crum- 
ble under  earthquakes,  corroding  rains,  and  the  tread 
of  the  unnumbered  years.  Of  adyton  and  oracular 
chasm  the  excavators  have  found  no  smallest  trace,  and 
not  even  one  column  rises  from  the  low  foundations  to 
give  evidence  of  things  unseen.  But,  at  least,  unlike 
the  Parthenon  and  many  another  great  shrine,  it  was 
never  converted  into  a  church  of  an  alien  faith. 

Secular  buildings  followed  in  the  wake  of  the  religious 
importance  of  Delphi.  The  Amphictyonic  Council  had 
a  hall  for  its  meetings  to  the  west  of  the  sacred  precinct, 
on  or  near  the  site  now  occupied  by  the  little  chapel  of 
St.  Elias.  Here,  in  sight  of  the  Crisaean  plain,  the 
incendiary  speech  of  ^Eschines  had  its  full  effect.  Within 
the  precinct,  safe  from  attack  in  times  of  war,  public 


DELPHI  239 

treasuries  were  erected  by  Asiatic  kings  and  Greek 
tyrants,  by  Greek  states  in  Asia  Minor  and  colonies 
in  Italy,  and  by  sovereign  cities  like  Athens  and  Thebes. 

The  erection  of  a  treasury  often  followed  upon  some 
public  success,  but  other  monuments  and  statues  also 
rose  at  the  feet  of  Apollo  to  mark  the  tidal  flow  of 
national  fortunes.  A  study  of  all  such  memorials, 
known  to  have  existed  at  Delphi,  would  be  equivalent 
to  a  detailed  study  of  Greek  history.  The  repulse  of 
the  Persians  from  the  mainland  and  of  the  Carthagin- 
ians from  Sicily,  and  the  stemming  of  the  later  inva- 
sions of  Gallic  barbarians  required  thank-offerings  to 
the  Delphic  god.  The  rise  of  Athens,  the  struggle  of 
Ionian  and  Dorian,  the  victory  of  Sparta,  the  late 
hegemony  of  Thebes  are  here  commemorated ;  and  with 
these  the  lesser  quarrels  of  Sparta  with  Argos  and 
Arcadia  and  of  Athens  with  Megara,  and  the  petty 
warfare  of  Phocians  and  Thessalians. 

A  myriad  of  statues  and  monuments  commemorated 
personal  interests  or  feeling.  From  a  haul  of  tunny  fish 
to  the  discovery  of  stolen  goods,  no  event  was  too  pro- 
saic to  inspire  an  offering  from  island  or  village.  And, 
throughout  Greece,  from  Macedonia  to  Crete,  towns 
delighted  to  express  their  reverence  by  gifts  of  marble 
and  bronze.  Midas  from  Asia  Minor  sent  a  chair  of 
state  and  Croesus  sent  a  golden  lion  and  silver  bowls. 
Arcesilas  of  Cyrene  in  northern  Africa,  in  the  fifth 
century,  celebrated  a  Pythian  victory  by  the  gift  of  a 
sculptured  chariot  and  charioteer.    The  statue  still 


240   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

remains,  the  most  famous  single  object  discovered  at 
Delphi.  Dominating  one  room  in  the  Museum,  he  seems 
in  his  bronze  dignity  as  untroubled  by  the  chilling 
silence  of  to-day  as  was  his  living  prototype,  in  the 
hippodrome  in  the  plain  below,  by  the  noise  and  tu- 
mult of  the  day  of  victory.  The  description  by  Sopho- 
cles of  the  Delphic  chariot  race  in  which  Orestes  was 
supposed  to  be  killed  reproduces  the  excitement  against 
which  many  a  charioteer  must  have  had  to  steady  his 
nerves.* 

Of  statues  of  mortals  dedicated  by  themselves  or  by 
their  admirers  there  was  no  end.  Among  these  persons 
were  the  great  rhetorician  Gorgias,  to  whose  teaching 
Greek  prose  owed  its  first  artistic  development,  and 
Phryne,  the  famous  courtesan  of  Thespiae.  With  her 
statue,  seen  by  men  of  Demosthenes's  age  between  the 
figures  of  the  Spartan  king  Archidamus  and  Philip  of 
Macedon,  we  may  surrender  the  effort  to  distinguish 
the  links  in  the  mighty  chains  which,  as  in  Plato's 
vision,  bound  the  Greek  earth  to  a  heavenly  throne. 

It  is  less  difficult  to  understand  the  Greek  harmony 
between  the  graver  and  brighter  needs  of  the  common 
life  which  added  to  the  temples  and  treasuries  of  Delphi 
buildings  for  recreation  and  enjoyment.  A  club-house 
was  erected  by  the  rich  Cnidians,  where  conversation, 
the  favourite  amusement  of  all  Greeks,  could  be  car- 
ried on.  Centuries  later  Plutarch  made  it  the  scene  of 
his  dialogue  on  the  decay  of  oracles.  If  the  age  of  the 

*  The  passage  is  quoted  in  chapter  xviii,  p.  406. 


DELPHI  241 

Antonines  showed  a  loss  of  faith,  art  at  least  held  its 
own,  and  the  talkers  must  have  added  to  the  pleasure 
of  skeptical  speculation  a  delight  in  the  decorations 
which  dated  from  the  fifth  century  before  Christ.  They 
consisted  of  pictures  by  Polygnotus  of  the  capture  of 
Troy  and  Odysseus's  journey  to  hell.  Now  only  bits 
of  stucco  painted  blue  betray  their  presence,  and  frag- 
mentary stones  alone  are  left  of  the  splendid  building. 
Little  more  is  left  of  the  beautiful  colonnades  which 
furnished  protection  from  sun  and  rain  to  the  frequent 
crowds.  In  fairly  good  preservation  still  is  the  Theatre, 
where,  as  in  all  the  religious  centres  of  Greece,  dra- 
matic representations  added  literature  to  the  pageant 
of  artistic  gifts.  Equally  inevitable  was  a  Gymnasium; 
but  most  important  of  all  was  the  Stadium,  in  which 
the  quadrennial  games  were  held. 

This  Stadium  lay  far  beyond  the  sacred  precinct  to 
the  west,  and  occupied  a  lofty  and  magnificent  situa- 
tion. In  what  Pausanias  calls  "  the  highest  part  of  the 
city"  the  slopes  of  Parnassus  break  sufficiently  to 
leave  a  narrow  shelf  of  flat  ground.  Every  foot  of  this 
was  used  for  the  erection  of  the  structure,  the  northern 
side  being  bounded  by  the  precipices  of  the  great  moun- 
tain, the  southern  side  being  supported  by  a  wall  of 
polygonal  masonry.  Part  of  this  wall  is  still  left,  and 
in  the  interior  there  are  tiers  of  seats  to  tempt  the 
dreamer.  The  marble  with  which  Herodes  Atticus  is 
said  to  have  faced  them  in  the  second  century  after 
Christ  is  now  all  gone.  But  one  may  yet  sit  on  the  orig- 


242   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

inal  stone  and  see  not  only  the  valley  of  the  Plistus  far 
below,  but  westward  a  bright  strip  of  the  Corinthian 
Gulf.  Here  once  gathered  eager  thousands  to  watch 
the  foot  races  and  the  wrestling  matches,  and  to  hear 
the  contesting  flutes  and  the  rival  lyres.  Originally, 
before  the  Crisaean  war,  the  Pythian  festival  had  oc- 
curred only  once  in  eight  years  and  had  consisted  of  a 
contest  in  singing,  to  the  accompaniment  of  the  lyre, 
a  hymn  to  Apollo.  The  early  musical  festival  found 
its  aftermath  in  the  combination  of  musical  with  ath- 
letic contests  in  the  more  frequent  "Games"  insti- 
tuted by  the  Amphictyons  after  they  had  taken  Delphi 
under  their  common  charge.  This  was  a  part  of  that 
general  reorganization  in  the  sixth  century  by  which 
the  Pythian,  Isthmian,  and  Nemean,  and  especially  the 
Olympic  games  were  thrown  into  high  relief  among 
the  multitudinous  festivals  of  Greece.  At  Delphi  a 
hymn  in  honour  of  the  god  of  the  golden  lyre  continued 
to  be  an  important  part  of  the  proceedings.  Among 
the  most  conspicuous  discoveries  of  the  French  are 
three  fragments  of  such  hymns,  engraved  on  stone, 
two  of  them  accompanied  by  musical  notation.  The 
hymns  are  late  ones,  of  no  especial  merit,  but  their 
scores  have  furnished  a  key  to  that  art  which  played  so 
large  a  part  in  Greek  education,  literature,  and  philoso- 
phy, and  which  made  the  Pythian  festival  a  reminder 
of  the  lord  of  music. 

Of  the  hymns  in  honour  of  mortals  victorious  in  the 
games  we  still  have  some  of  the  greatest  representatives 


DELPHI  243 

in  the  Pythian  odes  of  Bacchylides  and  Pindar.  Pindar 
may  well  boast  that  his  song  of  triumph  was  a  splen- 
dour in  the  Pythian  crown  of  Hiero  of  Syracuse ;  that 
he  would  come  to  him  over  the  deep  sea,  a  light  shining 
farther  than  any  heavenly  star.  For  only  through  a 
victory  at  some  one  of  the  four  great  festivals  of  Greece 
was  even  a  tyrant  sure  of  any  Panhellenic  honour.  The 
centrifugal  forces  of  Greek  life  found  an  antidote  in 
these  expressions  of  common  ideals.  It  has,  indeed, 
been  often  said  that  the  only  other  antidote  lay  in  the 
political  organization  of  Delphi  itself.  But  this  politi- 
cal unity  was  limited,  and,  if  Delphi  focused  Greek 
interests  in  any  way  that  even  Olympia  could  not,  the 
reason  must  be  sought  in  facts  that  lay  beneath  a  par- 
ticular form  of  government.  In  the  lofty  Stadium  men 
from  cities  whose  disparate  and  jealous  memorials  lay 
below  united  in  self-forgetful  applause  of  all  the  vic- 
tors. 

Here  the  traveller  may  pause  to  grasp,  amid  the  chaos 
of  swift  impressions,  a  picture  of  the  Delphic  life.  In 
it  religion  and  politics,  art  and  amusement  coalesced 
into  a  stream  of  almost  illimitable  influence.  From 
month  to  month  without  cessation  pilgrims  sought  the 
oracle.  The  store  of  information  about  public  and 
private  matters  thus  brought  to  the  oracular  seat  gave  to 
the  priests  a  knowledge  of  political  conditions  which 
they  could  easily  transmute  into  an  apparently  super- 
natural wisdom  and  a  unique  power  in  public  life. 
Hand  in  hand  with  this  political  power  went  an  ethical 


244   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

sovereignty  due  to  the  essential  religiousness  of  the 
Greeks.  And  lastly,  the  more  continuous  influx  of  visi- 
tors, over  against  an  infrequent  and  congested  festival, 
may  easily  have  rendered  the  artistic  influence  of  Delphi 
more  insistent  than  that  of  Olympia.  Xerxes  was  better 
acquainted  with  what  was  worthy  of  note  at  Delphi 
than  even  with  what  he  had  left  in  his  own  house,  for 
many  of  those  about  him  were  continually  describing 
the  treasures.  Often  the  seed  of  such  descriptions,  or 
of  actual  sight,  must  have  fallen  on  richer  soil  than 
an  Oriental  despot's  imagination.  Who  knows  what 
village  smithy  in  Thessaly  or  Arcadia  was  stimulated 
to  a  finer  output  by  the  iron  stand  made  by  Glaucus 
of  Chios  to  hold  the  big  silver  bowl  sent  to  Delphi  by 
Croesus's  father?  Indeed,  the  wonderful  animals  and 
plants  wrought  in  relief  for  the  first  time  upon  welded 
iron  may  have  inspired  many  a  designer  in  Athens  and 
Corinth.  And  many  a  young  sculptor  must  have  taken 
home  from  his  Pythian  pilgrimage  a  knowledge  of 
Phidias  and  Praxiteles  and  Lysippus. 

Thus  was  the  world  forever  pouring  itself  into  Delphi 
and  again,  like  a  retreating  wave,  bearing  something  of 
Delphi  away  with  it,  something  larger  and  richer  even 
than  the  golden  honours  that  were  symbolized  by  the 
crown  of  laurel  so  eagerly  borne  home  by  the  victors 
in  the  games.  And  yet  there  was  a  further  significance 
in  the  fragile  wreath  itself,  however  infrequently  real- 
ized by  athletes  and  spectators,  which  pointed  beyond 
the  artistic  and  moral  power  of  the  Pythian  God.  The 


DELPHI  245 

wreath  was  made  of  leaves  brought  from  the  Vale  of 
Tempe,  where  Apollo  had  plucked  his  own  crown 
of  victory,  when,  as  lord  of  light,  he  had  vanquished 
the  powers  of  darkness  and  had  been  purified  from  the 
evil  which  the  struggle  had  entailed.  Laurel  (or  bay) 
trees  grew  in  the  valley  of  Delphi  itself,  lingering  on 
until  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  when  the 
last  one  is  said  to  have  drooped  and  died  in  the  little  gar- 
den of  the  church  of  St.  Nicholas  which,  before  Kastri 
was  removed,  stood  in  front  of  the  spring  of  Cassotis. 
This  spring,  not  yet  exhausted,  was  the  feeder  of  the 
oracular  chasm  and  watered  the  grove  of  Apollo, ''  fresh- 
ening with  an  ever-living  stream  the  undying  gardens" 
from  which  Ion  gathered  his  laurel  broom.  Not  only  did 
the  acolytes  use  laurel  in  their  simple  tasks,  but  the 
Priestess  fumigated  herself  with  burning  boughs  before 
she  sat  upon  the  tripod,  and  chewed  laurel  leaves  before 
she  delivered  her  prophecies.  But  the  meaning  of 
Apollo's  crowning,  from  which  the  sacred  uses  of  the 
laurel  sprang,  was  beyond  the  reach  of  Ion,  untroubled 
"worshipper  within  the  Temple's  inner  shrine."  Nor 
to  moderns  is  the  revelation  likely  to  come  until  the 
Shining  Rocks  grow  pale  and  night  obliterates  the  lively 
daylight  of  the  spring.  Into  the  dark  void  left  by  the 
withdrawal  of  Apollo  swings  the  moon,  no  longer  com- 
passionate but  majestic.  Suddenly  upon  the  receptive 
imagination  descends  the  Delphic  awe.  The  almond 
trees  slip  into  shadowy  insignificance.  The  hills  stand 
out  dark  and  brooding,  while  their  ravines  deepen  un- 


246   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

fathomably.  And  through  the  fearful  silence  sounds 
the  prophetic  voice  of  an  unseen  god  vaster  than  the 
consciousness  of  the  race  which  created  him.  The 
quahty  of  subHmity  and  awfulness  now  apparent  in  the 
landscape  explains  the  influence  of  that  ideal  of  om- 
nipotent righteousness  which,  among  a  singularly  in- 
tellectual people,  gradually  formed  for  itself  a  living 
centre.  For  an  understanding  of  such  a  god  at  Delphi 
one  must  turn  to  ^Eschylus.  To  him  Apollo  was  a  god 
**who  knew  not  how  to  do  unrighteousness, '^  in  whose 
hands  were  loosed  the  tangled  skeins  of  human  sin. 
Sophocles,  in  his  dramas  of  CEdipus's  life,  represented 
the  folly  and  wrong-doing  of  a  noble  nature  forgiven  by 
the  Pythian  god  after  the  willing  endurance  of  a  just 
punishment.  But  ^schylus,  in  the  "  Eumenides,"  deals 
with  a  much  subtler  aspect  of  divine  law.  That  its 
opening  scene  is  laid  at  Delphi  is  appropriate  to  the 
overshadowing  importance  of  its  religious  meaning. 
Orestes  had  been  told  by  the  oracle  to  kill  his  mother, 
as  a  divinely  ordained  punishment  for  her  murder  of 
her  husband.  But  there  is  no  slaying  that  does  not  in- 
volve guilt,  as  Apollo  himself  knew  when  he  slew  the 
foul  dragoness.  The  awful  Furies  hound  Orestes  from 
Argos  to  the  altar  in  the  innermost  shrine  of  the  Delphic 
temple.  Here  is  laid  the  iEschylean  scene.  The  Furies, 
with  their  hair  of  coiling  snakes,  mutter  in  a  savage 
sleep,  ready  at  a  signal  to  fall  once  more  upon  the 
wretch  who  has  obeyed  the  god  against  the  human  con- 
science.   The  suppHant  Orestes,  doubting  and  hope- 


DELPHI  247 

less,  crouches  at  the  altar  steps.  And  towering  over 
them  all  stands  the  saving  God  who  had  once,  in  a  fair 
vale  of  purification,  put  upon  his  own  head  the  crown  of 
victorious  goodness.  He  promises  Orestes  no  easy  res- 
cue from  the  earthly  consequences  of  his  god-directed 
act.  He  must  be  pursued  once  more  by  the  hateful 
spawn  of  Darkness  over  the  sea  and  through  sea-girt 
cities.  But  at  last  he  shall  come  to  Athens,  a  suppliant 
of  Athena,  and  Apollo  himself  will  come  and  gain  for 
him  freedom  and  the  forgiveness  of  his  kind,  and  jus- 
tice among  men  shall  be  forever  established.  This  is 
no  mere  praise,  however  splendid,  of  the  wisdom  and 
the  justice  of  Athens.  It  is  rather  the  embodiment 
of  the  idea  which  to  the  Greeks  shone  as  a  "far-off 
heavenly  star"  above  all  the  expedients  of  practical  re- 
ligion, or  all  the  necessities  of  worldly  power.  Among 
the  hills  and  cliffs  of  Delphi  dwelt  a  god  whose  ways 
were  past  finding  out,  whose  commands  led  to  terror 
but  whose  service  led  to  peace. 

Thus  with  the  lengthening  of  day  into  night  rises  the 
flood  tide  of  fragmentary  realizations  of  ancient  thought. 
But  the  tide  ebbs  with  the  sinking  moon.  The  cold 
night  air  draws  the  dreamer  back  to  the  waiting  fires 
and  hospitable  copper  lamps  of  Kastri.  As  he  makes 
his  homeward  way  through  the  low  dark  ruins,  which 
are  all  that  the  intrepid  archaeologists  could  summon 
from  the  grave  of  centuries,  he  is  moved  to  wonder 
whether  Delphi,  save  for  its  natural  beauty  by  day  and 
by  night,  has  any  place  in  modem  thought.  The  ancient 


248   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

interpretation  of  its  importance  was  by  no  means  only 
a  religious  one.  The  Greeks  cannot  be  understood 
only  through  an  ^Eschylus  of  profound  spiritual  insight, 
or  an  Herodotus  of  intelligent  piety.  Thucydides,  amid 
the  bustle  of  its  life,  was  as  rationalizing  in  his  ideas 
about  Delphi  as  we  can  be  amid  its  dead  ruins.  To  him 
as  to  us,  its  oracular  power  was  a  matter  of  superstition. 
He  would  have  attributed  Socrates's  faith  in  it  to  his 
goodness  rather  than  his  knowledge,  and  doubtless 
anticipated  the  modern  explanation  of  the  wisdom  of 
the  priests.  And  yet  Thucydides  accepted  without 
question  the  political  and  civic  value  of  such  a  centre 
for  the  Greek  world.  Now  that  that  value  has  disap- 
peared with  the  world  it  served,  we  are  left  to  find  a 
new  value  in  the  imperishable  human  thoughts  which 
were  inspired  by  Delphi  and  have  outlived  its  marbles, 
its  silver  and  gold,  its  laurel  crowns  and  echoing  lyres. 
For  any  subsequent  religion  has  but  created,  mutatis 
mutandis,  the  differing  types  of  men  through  whom  we 
know  the  pagan  god.  If  the  oracle  is  dumb,  and  Apollo 
but  an  antique  fable,  yet  men  of  the  twentieth  century 
may  still  find  in  the  poets  and  thinkers  of  Greece  ex- 
pressions of  their  own  faith  or  their  own  doubt.  They 
may  find  also  that  blending  in  one  mind  of  belief  bom 
of  idealism  with  unbelief  born  of  experience  which 
is  familiar  to  the  modem  world.  Pindar's  piety  was 
such  that  "at  Delphi  they  kept  with  reverence  his  iron 
chair,  and  the  priest  of  Apollo  cried  nightly  as  he 
closed  the  temple, '  Let  Pindar  the  poet  go  in  unto  the 


DELPHI  249 

supper  of  the  god.' "    And  yet  he  uttered  the  universal 
lament: — 

Much  tossed,  now  rise,  now  sink  the  hopes  of  men,  the 
while  they  cleave  the  waves  of  baffling  falsity,  and  never 
yet  hath  any  one  on  earth  obtained  from  God  a  token  sure 
of  anything  to  come.   Blind  is  the  verdict  of  the  future. 


CHAPTER  XII 

FROM    DELPHI   TO   THEBES 

Ye  triple  pathways,  shrouded  crypt  of  woodland  vale, 
Coppice,  and  narrowing  pass  where  three  roads  meet!   O  ye 
Who  drank  my  father's  blood  —  my  own  —  from  these  my  hands. 
Do  ye,  perchance,  remember  what  ye  saw  me  do  ? 

Sophocles,  CEdipus  Tyrannus. 

y^^m — ^  Dipus  on  his  way  from  Delphi  and  Laius 
I  1-^  on  his  way  from  Thebes  met  at  the  Forked 
V  J  i  Roads  —  the  "Cleft  Way"  —in  a  lonely 
valley.  The  traveller  who  wishes  to  see  the  scene  of  the 
ensuing  tragedy  will  have  the  opportunity  to  pass 
through  a  country  of  extraordinary  beauty  and  variety 
and  also  to  know  the  leisured  charm  of  travel  by  horse 
or  mule.  With  the  multiplication  of  railroads  these 
opportunities  are  growing  rarer  year  by  year,  except 
for  those  whom  adventure  or  professional  interests  lead 
into  the  less  famous  parts  of  Greece.  The  major  por- 
tion of  the  country  that  attracts  students  of  Greek  life 
at  its  highest  is  as  easy  to  traverse  as  Italy.  It  is  true 
that  the  days  which  there  have  long  since  receded  into 
historical  perspective  seem  in  Greece  strangely  mingled 
with  the  present,  because  the  same  traveller  who  to-day 
can  take  the  train  from  Athens  to  Thebes  was  forced, 
ten  years  ago,  to  ride  or  drive  over  the  passes  of  Cithae- 


FROM  DELPHI   TO  THEBES  251 

ron.  But  already  in  the  books  of  Greek  travel  written 
in  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  we  begin 
to  perceive  that  delicate  aroma  of  a  more  primitive 
past  which  pervades  Goethe's  "  Italienische  Reise." 
In  addition  to  railroads,  the  matured  police  power 
of  the  government  has  been  a  transforming  agency. 
Not  only  between  Athens  and  Corinth  but  practically 
everywhere  in  Greece  brigandage  is  now  unknown. 
And,  finally,  the  onslaughts  of  dirt  and  vermin  have  been 
greatly  modified,  both  by  the  increasing  number  of 
creditable  inns  in  the  larger  places  and  by  the  ability 
of  the  peasants  in  remoter  villages  to  understand  the 
prejudices  of  foreigners.  Not  very  long  ago  a  request 
for  information  about  almost  any  route  that  led  away 
from  Athens  might  have  been  couched  in  the  words  of 
Dionysus  asking  about  the  trip  to  Hades :  — 

"  And  tell  me  too  the  havens,  fountains,  shops, 
Roads,  resting  places,  and  refreshment  rooms, 
Towns,  lodgings,  hostesses  with  whom  are  found 
The  fewest  bugs."  * 

Now,  in  villages  which  are  near  important  sites  of 
antiquity,  the  rough  and  ready  traveller  may  meet  with 
nothing  more  unfamiliar  to  him  than  the  Aristophanic 
flea  that  hops  in  the  blankets  like  a  dancing  girl,  while 
those  who  take  a  dragoman,  at  a  moderate  price,  and 
mattresses  and  supplies  from  Athens  may  escape  even 
this  enemy,  as  well  as  beds  of  hard  boards  and  coarsely 
cooked  food.   A  knowledge  of  modem  Greek  enables 

*  Aristophanes,  Frogs,  112;  translated  (om.  vopvfta)  by  Rogers. 


252   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

the  true  Phihellene  to  dispense  with  a  middleman  and 
to  receive  proofs  in  unexpected  places  of  the  unfailing 
hospitality  and  the  alternating  integrity  and  guile  of 
the  Greek  peasant. 

Perched  on  the  crest  that  forms  the  watershed  be- 
tween the  eastern  and  western  lengths  of  the  valley  of 
the  Plistus,  the  lovely  village  of  Arachova  serves  as  a 
way-station  on  the  pilgrimage  from  Kastri  to  the 
Forked  Roads.  The  first  part  of  the  road  leads  famil- 
iarly through  the  precinct  of  Delphi,  past  the  clump 
of  plane  trees  which  keep  green  the  memory  of  their 
ancestor  planted  by  Agamemnon,  and  past  Castalia, 
whose  waters,  emerging  from  the  gorge  below  the  Shin- 
ing Rocks,  are  as  "sweet  to  drink"  as  Pausanias  found 
them  and  as  clear  as  when  they  purified  the  suppliants 
at  the  oracle  and  the  ministering  hands  of  the  priests, 
or  laved  the  golden  hair  of  the  god  himself. 

Along  the  road  that  now  stretches  eastward  the  Per- 
sians streamed  toward  Delphi  at  the  time  of  Xerxes's 
invasion.  But  near  the  temple  of  Athena  Pronaia,  on 
the  lower  terrace,  they  were  repulsed  by.  terrible  por- 
tents. A  storm  of  thunder  burst  over  their  heads;  at 
the  same  time  two  crags  split  off  from  Mount  Parnas- 
sus and  rolled  down  upon  them  with  a  loud  noise, 
crushing  vast  numbers  beneath  their  weight,  while 
from  the  temple  there  went  up  the  war  cry  and  the 
shout  of  victory.  The  Delphians,  who  were  hiding  in 
the  Corycian  Cave,  seeing  their  terror,  rushed  down 
upon  them,  causing  great  slaughter.  And  barbarian  sur- 


FROM  DELPHI  TO  THEBES  253 

vivors  declared  afterwards  that  two  armed  warriors, 
of  a  stature  more  than  human,  pursued  after  their  fly- 
ing ranks,  pressing  them  close  and  slaying  them.  These 
supernatural  warriors  were  two  heroes  who  belonged 
to  Delphi,  by  name  Phylacus  and  Autonous.  For  their 
timely  aid  they  received  precincts  and  worship,  Auto- 
nous by  the  Castahan  spring,  his  comrade  hard  by  the 
road,  practically  identical  with  the  modem  highway, 
which  ran  above  the  temple  of  Athena.  The  traces  of 
this  Heroon  may  yet  be  seen,  faint  reminders  of  old- 
time  tumults  amid  to-day's  oblivious  silence.  A  little 
farther  is  the  so-called  "Logari,"  or  likeness  of  a  great 
door  chiselled  in  the  face  of  a  rock,  representing,  per- 
haps, the  Gate  of  Hell.  At  least  it  seems  to  have  marked 
the  entrance  to  an  ancient  cemetery  which  lay  below 
the  road  along  the  southern  slopes  now  given  over  to 
orchards  and  to  tillage.  Through  them  a  road  winds 
down  toward  the  silvery  Plistus,  twisting  in  and  out 
among  the  gray-green  olives  and  the  almond  trees.  In 
antiquity  this  was  the  road  to  the  bustling  town  of 
Ambrosus  by  the  pass  of  Dhesphina  over  Mount  Cir- 
phis.  Now  the  donkeys  that  saunter  along  it  are  bear- 
ing peasant  girls  and  their  bags  to  the  mills  by  the  river. 
The  road  to  Arachova  leads  in  a  gentle  ascent  close 
along  the  lower  reaches  of  Parnassus  on  the  left  and 
high  above  the  deep  valley  on  the  right.  The  muleteers 
may  turn  aside  to  shorter  mountain  paths,  but  the  easy 
highway  tempts  to  leisure  while  the  sun  is  still  warm 
in  the  west  and  the  brilliant  pageant  of  the  valley  is  but 


254   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

lightly  subdued  by  the  delicate  reserves  of  the  approach- 
ing evening.  Either  route  leads  in  less  than  three  hours 
to  the  foot  of  high  precipices  rising  at  the  back  of  windy 
Arachova,  the  representative  of  Homer's  Anemoreia 
(Windswept  Town).  These  cUffs,  now  called  Petri tes, 
are,  perhaps,  the  Look- Out  Place  often  alluded  to  in  an- 
cient literature,  the  point  of  vantage  from  which  Apollo, 
the  Far- Darter,  shot  his  arrow  at  the  dragon  in  Delphi. 
The  town  itself,  two  thousand  feet  above  the  sea-level, 
is  one  of  the  most  typical  of  modern  Greece  both  in 
situation  and  in  those  racial  characteristics  which  are 
forming  a  new  nation  out  of  the  roots  of  the  old.  The 
houses,  interspersed  with  vivid  green  trees,  gather  about 
each  other  in  terraces  up  the  hill  to  the  high-poised 
church  of  St.  George,  that  other  dragon  slayer,  while 
in  its  turn  the  little  Christian  edifice  is  frowned 
down  upon  by  the  rocky  mountain-side.  The  stony, 
twisted  streets,  alive  with  children,  often  become  stair- 
cases of  rock,  up  and  down  which  the  mules  indiffer- 
ently clatter.  Stone  courtyards  lead  to  doorways  out  of 
which  handsome  men  and  women  smile  an  hospitable 
welcome.  The  inhabitants  of  Arachova,  perhaps  be- 
cause they  live  near  the  Muses  of  Parnassus,  possess  a 
charm  and  courtesy  of  manner  that  is  not  duplicated 
among  the  rougher  peasants  of  the  Peloponnesus.  They 
are  also  famous  for  their  beauty,  the  gift  of  the  Greeks 
from  the  time  of  Helen  and  Achilles  through  all  ad- 
mixtures of  foreign  blood.  The  men  are  tall  and  slim, 
with  the  dignity  of  carriage  and  chiselled  fineness  of 


FROM  DELPHI  TO  THEBES  255 

feature  which  distinguishes  the  Greek  peasantry  from 
the  livelier  Italian,  and  the  beauty  of  the  women  is 
grave  and  tranquil.  The  traveller  may  find  himself 
served  by  a  fair  mother  and  fairer  daughter,  whose 
name  of  Sappho  is  belied  by  the  shy,  cool  loveliness  of 
her  parted  hair  and  innocent  eyes. 

The  Arachovans  cherish  brave  traditions  of  their 
part  in  the  War  of  Independence,  but  their  relation  to 
antiquity  is  revealed  in  certain  elements  of  their  im- 
aginative Hfe.  Now,  as  of  old,  natural  forces  are  iden- 
tified with  the  activities  of  divine  beings.  The  snow- 
storms and  icy  winds  of  winter  are  attributed  to  furious 
battles  waged  high  up  on  the  peaks  of  Parnassus  by  the 
spirits  of  the  mountain.  Gentler  spirits  of  forest  and 
fountain  seem  to  have  descended  directly  from  antique 
prototypes.  The  Corycian  Cave,  once  the  haunt  of 
Pan  and  his  nymphs,  is  still  a  favourite  resort  of  the 
Nereids.  And  these  "Maidens,"  as  the  modern  like 
the  ancient  Greek  often  calls  them,  dwell  in  many  other 
pleasant  places,  lingering  in  the  old  trunks  of  olive  or 
fig  trees,  Hke  hamadryads,  or  tumbling  sportively  in 
mill  streams  and  mountain  torrents,  like  the  daugh- 
ters of  ancient  Nereus  among  the  waves  of  the  sea. 
Primarily,  indeed,  the  Nereids  are  still  water  nymphs, 
and  the  modern  Greek  word  for  water,  nero,  so  often 
upon  the  tourist's  tongue,  echoes  their  immortal  play. 
Nor  has  the  fashion  of  their  garments  greatly  changed 
since  the  pictures  of  antiquity  represented  them  with 
long  veils,  now  bound  upon  the  head,  now  fluttering 


256   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

freely  in  the  hand.  The  peasants  say  that  their  Nereids 
wear  a  head  cloth,  always  of  the  finest  quality  but  in 
style  like  the  cloths  worn  by  their  own  women,  hanging 
down  over  the  neck  and  shoulders.  At  Arachova  the 
Nereids  go  with  uncovered  head  and  swing  the  cloth 
in  their  hands,  as  Leucothea  loosened  her  veil  to  give 
it  to  Odysseus  when  she  rose  like  a  sea-gull  from  the 
depths  of  ocean  to  save  his  life.  The  Nereids  have  pipe- 
playing  lovers  known  as  demons,  in  whom  Pan  and 
the  saL^rs  seem  to  live  on.  And  Pan  has  his  own 
special  representative  in  the  protective  Lord  of  Hares 
and  Wild  Goats,  who  still  ranges  the  slopes  of  Par- 
nassus. An  evil  spirit  in  the  shape  of  a  he-goat  with 
long  beard,  who  leaps  on  the  goats  to  their  destruction, 
hints  at  that  other  aspect  of  Pan  revealed  in  the  malig- 
nant power  of  nature. 

Another  inheritance  from  antiquity  are  the  Lamiae. 
One  of  these  female  monsters  dwelt  in  a  large  cavern 
in  the  side  of  Mount  Cirphis,  still  accessible  at  the  end 
of  a  blind  path  beyond  the  Plistus,  and  ravaged  the 
country  all  about  until  a  brave  hero  put  her  to  death. 
She,  and  others  of  her  ilk,  were  the  bugbears  of  chil- 
dren, and  they  still  live  among  the  Greek  peasantry 
as  vampirish  demons.  The  name  is  also  used  as  a  term 
of  reproach  for  scolding  women.  But  in  Arachova, 
oddly  enough,  the  Lamia  has  been  transformed  by 
some  kindly  alchemy  into  a  good  spirit,  and  is  often 
seen  in  the  dusk  striding  through  the  village  streets;  or 
spinning  at  a  huge  distaff  by  a  fountain's  rim.    Her 


FROM  DELPHI  TO  THEBES  257 

name  is  given  to  handsome,  well-behaved  women,  as 
beautiful  girls  are  said  to  be  Nereid- descended  or 
Nereid-eyed. 

The  modem  Greeks  also  believe  in  the  Fates  or 
Moerae,  either  as  three  dread  sisters  or  as  a  hierarchy 
of  twelve  who  delegate  the  care  of  a  specified  number 
of  men  to  a  smaller  committee.  At  Arachova  three 
fates  appear  within  three  days  of  an  infant's  birth,  two 
known  as  the  bearers  of  good  and  of  ill  fortune,  who 
fight  the  matter  out  and  agree  upon  a  destiny,  and  the 
third  called  the  Spinner,  who  will  weave  the  strands  into 
the  web  of  life. 

Thus  under  the  very  eyes  of  St.  George  pagan  spirits 
make  common  cause  with  the  angels  and  demons  of 
Christianity.  A  hoof  print  on  the  edge  of  a  crag  may 
betray  the  presence  of  the  lord  of  hares  and  goats  or 
of  the  unmentionable  Devil.  An  infant  who  dies  un- 
baptised  may  claim  to  be  the  victim  of  the  ruthless 
Spinner,  or  may  go  to  join  in  the  air  the  imps  who  war 
with  the  angels  for  the  souls  of  men.  Mountains  and 
ether,  springs  and  tree- trunks,  are  filled  with  the  di- 
vine forces  created,  under  the  influence  of  two  religions, 
by  a  people  always  sensitive  to  the  intimacy  between 
the  physical  and  spiritual  worlds. 

The  Cleft  Way  lies  two  hours  beyond  Arachova, 
and  six  hours  beyond  that  is  Chaeronea,  battlefield  and 
railroad  station.  On  a  morning  in  March  the  moon 
may  be  bright  at  six  o'clock  when  the  mules  beat  their 
way  out  of  the  rough  streets  of  Arachova  to  the  open. 


2s8   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

The  road  descends  from  the  village  and  skirts  the 
southern  sides  of  Parnassus,  leading  through  vineyards 
and  gorges  and  winding  over  a  bare  and  rocky  valley. 
The  amber  moon  grows  white,  and  between  the  open- 
ing hills  to  the  east  the  rising  sun  sets  the  sky  aflame. 
Gradually  the  gold  and  rose  give  way  to  intense,  bril- 
liant blue.  The  twin  peaks  of  Parnassus  glisten  in  their 
covering  of  snow.  A  pastoral  charm,  reminiscent  of 
Theocritus's  Sicilian  uplands,  mingles  with  the  rugged 
impressiveness  of  mountain  scenery.  Steep  hillsides 
alternate  with  pastures,  and  here  and  there  cool  streams 
curl  about  the  heedless  feet  of  mules  and  muleteers. 
Gradually  the  severity  of  the  landscape  predominates. 
The  road  from  Delphi  along  which  (Edipus,  like  our- 
selves, was  coming,  descends  through  a  wild  pass  en- 
closed by  the  mighty  precipices  of  Parnassus  and 
Cirphis,  and  in  a  scene  of  impressive  loneliness  meets 
the  roads  from  Daulis  and  Thebes.*  The  spot  is  now 
called  "Stavrodromi  tou  Mega,"  or  Cross- Roads  of 
Megas,  in  memory  of  a  hero  who  was  killed  here  in  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  while  destroying  a 
band  of  brigands.  The  story  of  the  ancient  deed  of 
violence  is  put  by  Sophocles  into  the  mouth  of  CEdipus 
himself.  The  Delphic  oracle  had  declared  that  Thebes 
could  be  healed  of  its  pestilence  only  by  the  punishment 

*  The  local  guides  sometimes  place  the  Cleft  Way  a  little  further 
along,  in  a  very  narrow  pass,  known  as  the  "Steni."  Although  this 
spot  in  some  respects  better  corresponds  to  the  language  of  Sopho- 
cles, the  balance  of  authoritative  opinion  now  supports  the  locali- 
zation of  the  story  at  the  first  cross-roads. 


FROM  DELPHI  TO  THEBES  259 

of  the  murderer  of  Laius,  the  former  king,  and  (Edipus 
^      had  proclaimed  the  requisite  sentence  against  the  un- 
known.  Now  he  has  begun  to  realize  that  he  was  the 
slayer :  — 

And,  wife,  I'll  speak  out  truth  to  thee.   When,  journeying, 

I  came  hard  by  this  three-forked  road,  there  met  me  there, 

Just  as  thou  tellest  it,  a  herald  and  a  man 

Mounted  upon  a  carriage  that,  was  drawn  by  colts. 

And  here  the  leader  and  the  old  man,  too,  himself, 

The  pair  of  them,  would  thrust  me  rudely  from  the  path, 

And  I,  enraged,  strike  him  —  the  charioteer  —  who  tried 

To  push  me  off.   And  then  the  old  man,  seeing  this. 

Fetched  me  a  I3I0W  with  two-pronged  goad  full  on  my  head 

As  I  strode  by.   No  equal  penalty  he  paid. 

Not  he.    By  one  swift  blow  from  staff  in  this  my  hand 

He's  rolled  out  straightway  from  the  car  upon  his  back, 

And  I  slay  all  of  them!   So,  if  there's  any  kin 

'Twixt  Laius  and  this  stranger,  who  is  wretcheder 

Than  this  man  now  before  thee?  Who?  what  man,  could  be 

More  hateful  to  the  gods?   Whom  never  any  one, 

Or  foreigner  or  citizen,  may  in  his  house 

Receive;  whom  none  may  speak  to,  nay,  but  from  his  house 

Must  thrust !   And  this  —  these  curses  —  none  except  myself 

Brought  down  upon  me! 

From  the  Forked  Roads  travellers  who  must  push 
on  to  Chaeronea  will  look  regretfully  at  the  path  that 
leads  to  "lone  Daulis"  in  "the  high  Cephisian  vale." 
The  little  town  is  situated  on  the  uneven  summit  of  a 
massive  hill  which  rises  abruptly  from  the  glens  at  the 
eastern  foot  of  Parnassus,  and  of  its  bowery  loveliness 
among  pomegranates  and  olives  and  almonds  enticing 
tales  are  told.  Here,  according  to  a  favourite  Greek 
legend,  was  the  first  home  of  the  nightingale  and  the 


26o   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

scene  of  that  "life  enriched  with  sorrow,  which  her 
clear  voice,  insatiate,  bemoans."  The  savage  Tereus, 
king  of  Daulis,  had  married  Procne,  a  prehistoric 
princess  of  Athens,  and  after  the  birth  of  her  son  Itylus 
had  cut  out  her  tongue  and  claimed  that  she  was  dead. 
He  then  married  her  sister  Philomela.  The  betrayed 
Procne,  however,  told  Philomela  the  truth  by  means 
of  a  web  into  which  she  had  embroidered  her  story, 
and  the  two  sisters  united  in  slaying  the  innocent  Itylus 
and  serving  him  up  as  a  meal  to  his  father.  The  gods, 
in  anger,  transformed  Procne  and  Philomela  into 
a  nightingale  and  swallow,  forever  mourning  Itylus, 
while  Tereus  became  a  pursuing  hawk.  When  spring 
comes,  whether  in  Daulis  or  Ithaca  or  by  the  "  tranquil 
Thames,"  the  "pallid-olive"  nightingale  pours  forth 
her  music,  "  bewailing  her  dead  child." 

The  ride  from  the  Cleft  Way  to  Chaeronea,  winding 
through  the  valley  of  the  Platania,  a  tributary  of  the 
Bceotian  Cephisus,  is  rich  in  interest  and  variety.  A 
little  to  the  west  of  Chaeronea,  on  the  border  between 
Phocis  and  Boeotia,  lies  Hagios  Vlasis,  a  miserable 
village,  known  to  fame  only  because  of  its  position  un- 
der the  ancient  acropolis  of  Panopeus.  The  impor- 
tance of  Panopeus  was  the  subject  of  legend  and 
poetry  rather  than  of  history.  From  its  clay  Prome- 
theus fashioned  the  human  race,  and  from  its  people 
sprang  Epeios,  the  inventor  at  Troy  of  the  wooden 
horse.  Here  also  the  giant  Tityos  lived  and  died.  He 
had  violated  Leto  as  she  went  up  to  Delphi  through 


FROM   DELPHI   TO  THEBES  261 

Panopeus  "of  the  fair  dancing  places,"  and  for  this  sin 
Odysseus  found  him  in  Hades  sprawling  over  nine  roods 
of  levelled  ground,  his  liver  gnawed  by  vultures.  Pausa- 
nias  was  perplexed  by  the  Homeric  epithet  for  the  town 
until  the  inhabitants  explained  to  him  that  the  Mae- 
nads on  their  way  to  Parnassus  stopped  at  Panopeus 
for  preliminary  dances.  Dionysus  may  have  passed 
this  way  with  his  mysterious  quickening,  as  Apollo  did 
with  his  ordered  inspiration.  Thus  the  insignificant 
town  was  the  legendary  scene  of  man's  birth  and  of 
important  episodes  in  his  mental  and  moral  develop- 
ment. 

Beyond  Hagios  Vlasis  lies  another  modem  village 
in  the  shadow  of  an  ancient  acropolis.  Between  Phocis 
and  Boeotia  there  is  no  natural  boundary,  but  the  large 
plain  of  Chaeronea  sweeps  westward  into  Phocis  and 
eastward  into  Boeotia  to  what  used  to  be  the  Copaic 
lake.  On  the  north  and  south  the  plain  is  enclosed  by 
barren  mountains,  and  the  town  of  Chaeronea,  unlike 
Panopeus,  spread  out  from  the  base  of  its  acropolis  at 
the  foot  of  the  southern  and  lower  hills.  Its  modem 
representative  is  the  hamlet  of  Kapraena,  which  dis- 
plays a  few  legacies  of  antiquity  and  from  which  can 
be  seen  the  two  peaks  of  Petrachus,  the  sharp  and 
steep  acropolis.  The  chapel  of  Panagia  (the  Virgin) 
contains  a  chair  of  white  marble  called  the  chair  of 
Plutarch.  The  great  biographer  was  bom  in  Chaeronea, 
and  the  worshipful  preservation  of  his  name  in  the 
little  Christian  church  reminds  one  of  the  appearance 


262   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

of  the  equally  respectable  Plinies  on  the  exterior  of 
the  cathedral  of  their  native  Como. 

But  the  dominant  interest  of  Chaeronea  is  the  battle 
which,  in  338  b.  c.,.  was  lost  by  the  forces  of  Greece  united 
against  Philip  of  Macedon.  No  single  account  of  the 
terrible  defeat  has  been  handed  down  by  dramatist  or 
historian,  as  ^Eschylus  and  Herodotus  immortalized 
the  victories  of  Salamis  and  Marathon,  and  only  gen- 
eral facts  in  the  struggle  are  known  to  us  from  lesser 
writers.  Before  the  march  to  Chseronea  Demosthenes 
had  risen  in  the  Assembly,  at  a  terrified  meeting  in  the 
cold  and  hopeless  dawn,  and  persuaded  the  Athenians 
to  make  a  hasty  alliance  with  Thebes  against  the  en- 
croachments of  Philip.  In  the  battle  the  Athenians 
held  the  left  wing  while  the  right,  the  post  of  honour, 
was  given  to  the  famous  Sacred  Band  of  the  Thebans. 
Between  them  were  gathered  the  other  allies.  Against 
the  Thebans  at  the  crucial  moment  Philip  turned  his 
cavalry  under  the  command  of  the  young  Alexander. 
As  the  struggle  became  hopeless  the  Athenians  re- 
treated, but  the  members  of  the  Sacred  Band  fought 
until  they  fell,  raising  one  last  memorial  to  their  great 
founder,  Epaminondas,  and  offering  one  last  atonement 
for  the  cowardice  of  Thebes  in  the  Persian  wars. 

The  victory  of  Macedon  was  not  so  much  wrested  from 
the  Greek  arms  as  it  was  due  to  ineradicable  defects 
in  the  Greek  political  character.  It  was  characteristic 
of  all  Greek  history  that  the  allies  should  have  formed 
no  united  and  harmonious  army  under  one  fully  em- 


> 


FROM  DELPHI   TO  THEBES  263 

powered  leader.  The  intense  individualism  which 
made  Greece  supreme  in  the  arts  and  in  science  and 
philosophy  left  her  at  the  mercy  of  peoples  able  to 
subordinate  single  wills  to  a  national  purpose.  In  the 
presence  of  the  architecture,  sculpture,  and  literature  of 
the  Greeks  it  is  impossible  to  deplore  their  unthwarted 
intellectual  freedom,  their  keen  sensibilities,  their 
genius  for  personal  development.  But  at  Chasronea  it 
is  easy  to  see  not  only  the  disintegration,  but  also  the 
demoralization  of  a  national  life  which  lacked  the  he- 
roic sacrifice  of  self  and  the  persistence  of  a  common 
controlling  ideal  as  much  as  it  lacked  administrative 
genius  and  political  wisdom. 

But  it  must  be  remembered  that  such  inclusive  stric- 
tures on  the  Greek  character  can  be  made  only  when 
we  follow  the  prejudices  of  Philip's  enemies  in  exclud- 
ing Macedon  from  the  Greek  states.  In  the  perspective 
of  history  it  is  clear  that  Chasronea  opened  the  way  for 
a  new  Hellenic  state  to  create  a  new  national  life  in 
which  discord  should  give  way  to  unity  and  individual- 
ism to  a  world  empire.  Nevertheless  the  rise  of  Macedon 
was  not  continuous  with  the  former  life  of  Greece  as 
were  the  successive  hegemonies  of  the  older  states.  The 
monarchy  of  Philip  obliterated  not  only  the  existing 
commonwealths  but  their  modes  of  government.  Po- 
litically the  loss  was  swallowed  up  in  gain.  Aristotle's 
polity  has  rightly  been  called  provincial  in  compari- 
son with  his  pupil's  empire  in  which  there  was  nei- 
ther Greek  nor  barbarian.    But  in  the  world  of  ideas 


264   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

no  substitution  was  an  adequate  atonement.  The 
ideals  of  liberty  which  the  older  states  had  cherished 
and  in  which  their  intellectual  and  artistic  life  had 
been  nurtured  were  lost  at  Chseronea.  In  this  sense 
the  Athenians  were  right  in  saying  that  here  ended  the 
freedom  of  Greece. 

More  than  two  centuries  later  a  lesser  victory  was 
won  at  Chaeronea  by  Sulla  over  the  forces  of  Mithri- 
dates,  king  of  Pontus.  Two  trophies  were  erected  by 
the  Roman  general,  and  were  afterwards  seen  by  Pau- 
sanias.  "But  Philip,  the  son  of  Amyntas,  set  up  no 
trophy,  neither  at  Chaeronea,  nor  for  any  other  victory 
that  he  won  over  barbarians  or  Greeks,  for  it  was  not 
a  Macedonian  custom  to  erect  trophies."  On  this  field 
the  only  trophy  was  the  one  erected  by  the  defeated 
to  the  dead.  The  Athenians  who  fell  were  buried  in 
the  Cerameicus,  and  Demosthenes,  who  had  fought  in 
the  ranks,  pronounced  over  them  a  funeral  oration. 
The  Thebans  were  buried  on  the  field.  ''No  inscrip- 
tion," says  Pausanias,  "is  carved  on  the  tomb,  but  a 
lion  is  placed  on  it,  perhaps  in  allusion  to  the  spirit  of 
the  men.  The  reason  why  there  is  no  inscription  I  take 
to  be  that  their  fortune  did  not  match  their  valour." 

This  lion  may  be  seen  to-day  about  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  beyond  Kapraena,  just  before  one  turns  toward 
the  modern  railroad  station  of  Chaeronea.  For  centu- 
ries it  had  lain  in  fragments,  but  in  1902  the  broken 
pieces  were  fitted  together  with  a  result  extraordinarily 
impressive.    Upon  a  pedestal  ten  feet  high  sits  erect 


FROM  DELPHI  TO  THEBES  265 

a  great  beast  of  gray  stone,  lifting  into  the  free  air  a 
massive  unbowed  head,  and  rivalling  in  the  guardian- 
ship of  Chaeronea  the  greater  Inspector  who,  possibly 
after  this  same  battle,  was  invoked  by  an  unknown 
poet :  — 

O  guardian  Time,  Inspector  General 

Of  mortals'  doings  manifold, 
Be  herald  of  our  fate  to  men,  to  all. 
How  we  the  holy  land  of  Greece  essayed 
To  save,  and,  dying,  plains  Boeotian  made 

Renowned  in  -story  never  old. 

The  road  turns  at  a  sharp  angle  in  front  of  the  lion 
and  runs  in  placid  monotony  to  the  station  situated 
near  the  banks  of  the  Cephisus.  Pausanias  closes  his 
chapter  on  Chaeronea  by  a  rare  reference  to  the  com- 
mon people  of  his  own  day,  who  gathered  flowers  and 
from  them  distilled  "balms  for  the  pains  of  men."  In 
a  modem  chapter  the  end  comes,  not  with  the  haunting 
fragrance  through  summer  fields  of  plucked  lilies  and 
healing  roses,  but  with  the  scream  of  an  engine  as  the 
Athens  express  breaks  into  the  little  station.  The  train 
goes  straight  through  Boeotia  to  the  bright  city  in  the 
Attic  plain.  But  on  the  way  lies  Thebes  of  the  seven 
gates. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THEBES    AND   BCEOTIA 

O  Thebe  blest,  wherein  delighteth  most  thy  heart  ?  in  which  of 
all  the  noble  deeds  wrought  in  thy  land  in  days  gone  by  ?  Gone  by, 
I  say,  for  now  the  Grace  of  olden  time  is  fallen  upon  sleep. 

Pindar. 

OF  Boeotia  more  than  of  any  other  province  of 
Greece  is  our  involuntary  judgment  likely  to 
be  at  fault,  for  the  ancient  distinction  be- 
tween the  quick-witted  Athenians  and  the  stupid  Boeo- 
tians has  passed  into  our  own  proverbial  language.  But 
our  inherited  contempt  for  the  Boeotian  "clowns"  is 
rather  a  tribute  to  the  persistent  intellectual  domina- 
tion of  the  Athenians  than  an  accurate  reflection  of  the 
truth.  Indeed,  if  we  examine  the  sources  of  the  tradi- 
tion, we  find  that  the  original  verdict  was  popular  and 
unreasoned,  receiving  its  literary  support  in  comedy 
which  deliberately  appealed  to  vulgar  prejudices.  "If 
you  have  good  sense,  you  will  avoid  Boeotia,"  was  the 
mocking  advice  of  Pherecrates,  the  distinguished  fore- 
runner of  Aristophanes,  and  to  the  comic  poets  of  the 
following  centuries  Boeotian  gluttony  and  Boeotian 
clumsiness  were  an  unfailing  resource  to  pleasure  the 
fickle  humours  of  the  crowd. 

In  the  serious  Uterature  of  the  great  periods  Boeotia 


THEBES   AND   BCEOTIA  267 

is  treated  with  respect.  Plutarch  complains  that  Hero- 
dotus misrepresented  Thebes  in  the  Persian  Wars,  and 
warns  his  readers  that  as  there  are  venomous  insects  at 
the  heart  of  roses  so  beneath  the  historian's  delightful 
and  persuasive  style  lurk  defamation  and  vituperation 
of  '*  the  noblest  and  greatest  cities  and  men  of  Greece." 
But  if  Herodotus  has  diverged  from  the  truth,  in  this 
instance  a  questionable  supposition,  he  has  at  least 
looked  upon  Thebes  as  an  enemy  and  not  overlooked 
her  as  a  boorish  community.  In  the  history  of  Thucy- 
dides  also,  and  even  of  the  bigot  Xenophon,  Boeotian 
cities  make  a  dignified,  if  not  always  virtuous,  appear- 
ance among  the  actors  on  the  national  stage. 

In  poetry  Boeotia  receives  her  full  rights  as  a  contrib- 
utor to  the  imaginative  life  of  Greece.  In  Homer  not 
only  is  the  Boeotian  haijDOur  of  Aulis  the  meeting  place 
of  the  Greek  fleet  before  it  sets  sail  for  Ilium,  but  also 
Boeotian  landscapes  beautify  heroic  episodes  with 
their  rivers  flowing  between  green  banks,  their  open 
meadows  and  bright  groves,  their  flocks  of  tame  doves 
and  grassy  ways.  In  the  Homeric  Hymns  Boeotian  vine- 
yards and  furrows  bloom  under  the  swift  feet  of  golden- 
haired  Apollo  and  mischievous  Hermes.  Above  all,  in 
the  Attic  dramatists  Boeotian  Thebes  is  the  scene  of  the 
epiphany  of  gods  and  of  the  sorrows  of  humanity.  The 
legendary  past  of  this  city  was  crowded  with  person- 
ages whose  glories  and  whose  dooms  were  on  so  grand 
a  scale- that  they  became  to  the  tragic  poets  of  Athens, 
and  still  are  to  us,  symbols  of  the  unceasing  conflict 


268    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

between  will  and  destiny.  The  Theban  legends  more 
than  any  others,  save  those  of  Argos,  appealed  to  ^schy- 
lus,  Sophocles,  and  Euripides  as  fitted  for  their  dramatic 
purpose  of  arousing  "pity  and  terror."  In  using  this 
material  they  displayed  a  familiarity  with  the  Thebes 
of  their  own  day  which  is  a  striking  proof  that  men  of 
sense  and  feeling  could  delight  in  Bceotia.  ^Eschylus 
perceived  the  fertility  of  the  land  and  the  fairness  of 
Dirce,  goodliest  of  streams.  Sophocles  seems  to  have 
heard  and  never  forgotten  the  soft  murmur  of  the  river 
Ismenus.  And  Euripides  knew  intimately  the  wild  ivy 
growing  over  the  city  towers  and  the  berries  and  flowers 
of  the  city  gardens,  the  golden  wheat- fields  and  cooling 
springs  of  the  surrounding  country,  the  "deep  pine 
greenery"  and  "fallen  oak  leaves"  within  the  forests 
of  Mount  Cithaeron,  the  mountain  torrents  cleaving 
the  narrow,  crag-topped  glens,  and  the  gleaming  snow 
long  resting  on  the  mountain's  heights. 

Furthermore,  Bceotia  had  its  own  traditions  of  cul- 
ture. Although  creative  artistic  power  was  exemplified 
only  in  Hesiod,  the  originator  of  a  new  literary  move- 
ment, and  in  Pindar,  the  most  eminent  lyric  poet  of 
Greece,  there  was  revealed  in  the  architecture,  sculp- 
ture, and  painting  which  enriched  cities  and  sanctua- 
ries, and  in  the  poetry  and  music  which  were  conspicu- 
ous at  festivals,  a  critical  taste  as  trustworthy  as  any 
outside  of  Attica.  Educational  ideals  also  tended  toward 
a  genuine  if  not  always  vigorous  cultivation.  Plutarch's 
ripe  refinement  is  a  late  but  not  a  solitary  example. 


THEBES  AND  BCEOTIA  269 

Thus  accoutred  against  prejudice  we  may  hope  more 
fairly  to  appraise  the  good  and  the  evil  in  Boeotian 
Ufe. 

Bceotiai  has  one  of  the  most  fortunate  situations  in 
Greece,  for  its  frontiers  are  either  protected  by  high 
mountains  or  border  on  two  arms  of  the  sea  —  the 
Gulf  of  Corinth  and  the  Gulf  of  Euboea  —  which  in 
antiquity  connected  her  with  the  extended  maritime 
life  of  Greece  and  put  her  into  easy  communication  with 
Attica  and  the  Peloponnesus. 

Within  the  mountain  barriers  the  Boeotian  country 
consists  of  two  plains  separated  by  hills.  The  flatness 
of  the  northern  plain  is  unrelieved,  and  the  rivers  that 
flow  into  it,  like  the  Cephisus,  find  no  outlets  except  by 
katavothras  or  channels  which  they  force  for  themselves 
under  Mount  Ptoon  in  the  north.  The  frequent  stop- 
page of  these  channels  turned  a  large  part  of  the  plain 
into  the  famous  Copaic  Lake,  the  drainage  of  which 
moved  prehistoric  engineers  to  wonderful  feats,  tempted 
to  comparative  failure  the  less  expert  engineers  of  suc- 
cessive historic  periods,  and  has  finally  been  accom- 
plished by  modem  skill.  Within  a  few  years  a  British 
company  has  reclaimed  for  the  growing  energies  of 
modern  Greece  thousands  of  acres  of  land  that  will 
yield  two  crops  a  year. 

The  southern  basin  of  Boeotia  is  smaller  and  also 
less  homogeneous  and  monotonous  than  the  northern. 
Thebes  occupies  a  small  plateau  of  its  own  on  the 
northern  side  of  a  low  range  of  hills  that  divides  it 


270   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

from  the  larger  part  of  the  plain,  given  over  to  the 
beautiful  valley  of  the  Asopus. 

The  fertility  and  charm  of  Boeotia  may  still  be  appre- 
ciated. In  antiquity  cities  and  towns,  busied  with  the 
industries  of  the  soil  and  of  the  sea,  gave  evidence  also 
of  the  practical  resources  supplied  by  Nature.  And  yet 
it  must  be  admitted  that  the  historical  importance  of 
Boeotia  falls  somewhat  short  of  its  obvious  advantages. 
Only  after  Athens  and  Sparta  had  risen  successively 
to  the  tegemony  of  Greece  and  again  lost  their  power 
did  Thebes  play  a  leading  role  in  national  poUtics.  And 
at  no  time  did  Boeotians  vie  either  in  energy  or  genius 
with  the  people  of  barren  Attica.  An  explanation  often 
given  is  that  the  unhealthful  climate  and  heavy  atmo- 
sphere of  the  country  modified  natural  impulses  to 
enterprise.  The  Athenians,  as  we  have  seen,  laid 
great  stress  on  the  brilliant  freshness  of  their  own  air 
as  promoting  intelligence.  But  another  explanation 
takes  into  account  the  mystery  of  racial  characteristics. 
Before  Boeotia  was  conquered,  sometime  in  the  centu- 
ries preceding  Homer,  by  the  northern  race  from  Epirus 
and  Thessaly  which  gave  the  country  its  name  and 
began  the  "historic  period,"  there  existed  both  in  the 
north  and  in  the  south  older  peoples  of  evident  wealth 
and  power.  For  centuries  Orchomenus  was  the  leading 
city,  not  only  of  the  northern  plain  but  of  the  whole 
country.  Its  mighty  kings  and  golden  splendour  were 
still  a  bright  memory  to  Homer,  and  excavations  have 
brought  to  life  for  us  indications  of  the  richness  of  its 


THEBES  AND  BGEOTIA  271 

civilization.  Exceptionally  impressive  and  interesting 
ruins  of  a  fortress  now  known  as  Goulas  (or  Gha  or 
Gla)  have  been  discovered  on  what  used  to  be  the  eastern 
bank  of  the  Copaic  Lake.  And  at  Thebes  also  we  shall 
vind  traces  of  a  people  as  advanced  as  any  in  prehis- 
toric Greece.  In  the  early  ages  the  air  of  Boeotia  does 
not  seem  to  have  prevented  conspicuous  progress  in 
political  power  or  in  the  arts.  The  northern  invaders, 
then,  would  seem  to  have  been  responsible  for  the 
defects  of  later  history,  failing  to  construct  a  civiliza- 
tion equal  to  the  one  they  had  been  able  to  destroy. 
In  the  case  of  the  arts  especially,  it  is  significant  that 
Pindar,  the  only  Boeotian  poet  of  the  first  order,  was 
not  of  unmixed  Boeotian  blood,  but  belonged  to  a 
branch  of  the  JEgidx,  who  traced  their  pedigree  back 
to  the  pre- Boeotian  rulers  of  Thebes.  Of  this  descent, 
distinguished  in  the  eyes  of  all  Greeks,  Pindar  was 
justly  proud.  And  yet  he  was  a  loyal  son  of  Thebes  and 
assumed  his  share  in  the  ** ancient  reproach"  of  *'  Boeo- 
tian swine."  We  are  at  liberty,  therefore,  to  emphasize 
his  country  before  his  blood. 

Modem  Thebes  is  huddled  on  the  site  of  the  ancient 
acropolis,  its  poverty  serving  as  a  reminder  of  the 
desolation  which  as  early  as  Strabo's  time  had  fallen 
upon  one  of  the  great  cities  of  Greece.  Pausanias  found 
the  lower  city  deserted,  save  for  the  sanctuaries,  the 
population  being  restricted  to  the  acropolis,  and  Dio 
Chrysostom  had  seen  a  solitary  image  standing  among 
the  ruins  of  the  old  market-place.  In  the  middle  ages 


272  THEBES  ANDBCEOTIA 

Fortune  returned  to  Thebes  from  time  to  time,  but 
under  the  Turks  deserted  her  in  apparent  despair. 
Doubtless  the  town  will  revive  as  the  modem  nation 
gathers  its  forces.  In  the  mean  time  it  serves  to  indicate 
the  area  of  the  stronghold  or  acropolis  built  by  the 
prehistoric  settlers.  Before  the  middle  of  the  fifth 
century  the  city  had  grown  westward  to  the  stream 
of  Dirce,  and  eastward  to  the  river  Ismenus.  After 
that  time,  as  is  evident  from  remains  of  city  walls,  the 
area  was  even  more  extended. 

The  mythological  past  of  Thebes  was  greater  than 
any  of  its  historic  periods.  Her  early  citizens  shone 
brilliantly  among  those  — 

"  Lights  of  the  age  that  rose  before  our  own 
As  demigods  o'er  Earth's  wide  region  known, 
Yet  these  dread  battle  hurried  to  their  end ; 
Some,  where  the  sevenfold  gates  of  Thebes  ascend, 
Strave  for  the  flocks  of  (Edipus  in  fight, 
Some  war  in  navies  led  to  Troy's  far  shore."  * 

The  story  of  Cadmus,  the  legendary  founder  of 
Thebes,  is  one  of  the  best  examples  of  the  legends  by 
which  the  Greeks  reconstructed  their  early  history. 
As  if  by  ''shadows  of  dreams"  they  were  haunted  by 
the  memory  of  ancient  adventures  and  enterprises,  by 
movements  of  whole  peoples  and  bright  deeds  of  early 
heroes.  And  in  spite  of  their  arrogant  aloofness  in  his- 
toric times  from  all  "barbarians,"  they  admitted,  in 
the  stories  into  which  their  racial  imagination  shaped 
the  formless  facts  of  prehistoric  life,  a  close  connection 

*  Hesiod,  Works  and  Days,  i6o.  Translated  by  Elton. 


THEBES  AND  BCEOTIA  273 

with  foreign  peoples.  So  Cadmus  was  said  to  be  a 
Phoenician  going  forth  from  his  own  land  and  settling 
in  Boeotia  before  it  was  known  by  that  name.  What- 
ever the  Phoenician  connection  was,  whether  direct 
or  by  way  of  Crete,  whether  by  colonization  or  merely 
by  trading  stations,  it  is  certain  that  a  pre-Boeotian 
people  occupied  Thebes  and  were  displaced  by  north- 
em  invaders,  who  in  their  turn,  at  one  time  or  another, 
seem  to  have  been  forced  on  by  the  pressure  of  Illyrians 
from  Epirus.  These  facts  the  Greek  people  made  into 
a  story  of  individual  adventure,  and  this  story  Greek 
poets  made  dramatic  and  universal.  Cadmus  was  son 
of  a  Phoenician  king  and  brother  of  the  ravished  Europa. 
Sent  by  his  father  to  find  his  sister,  and  not  daring  to 
return  without  her,  he  asked  advice  of  the  Delphic 
oracle.  He  was  told  to  follow  a  cow  until  she  should 
lie  down.  This  strange  behest  led  him  through  Phocis 
to  Thebes.  Here,  like  most  heroes,  including  Apollo, 
who  wished  to  take  possession  of  strange  earth,  he  was 
obliged  to  slay  a  dragon.  Athena,  his  special  guardian, 
bade  him  sow  the  dragon's  teeth,  and  from  these  sprang 
up  an  armed  brood  of  warriors,  known  thereafter  as 
the  "Spartoi"  or  Sown  Men.  Cadmus  watched  them 
fight  with  each  other  until  only  five  were  left,  with 
which  doughty  remnant  he  built  up  the  Cadmeia,  or 
original  Acropolis  of  Thebes.  Like  Apollo  again,  he  was 
forced  to  atone  for  the  murder  of  the  dragon  by  serving 
Ares  for  a  term  of  years.  At  the  end  Ares  gave  him 
to  wife  Harmonia,  his  daughter  by   Aphrodite,  and 


274   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Cadmus  began  a  glorious  reign.  But  his  patient  bond- 
age to  Ares  had  won  only  a  temporary  pacification,  and 
to  his  children  and  grandchildren  passed  the  relentless 
curse.  CEdipus  was  his  direct  descendant.  Even  in 
Cadmus' s  lifetime  two  daughters  and  two  grandsons 
met  with  violent  deaths,  and  he  and  his  queen  Har- 
monia  went  far  away  to  Illyria  and  became  rulers  of  the 
Enchelians.  There  they  were  changed  into  serpents, 
"bright  and  aged  snakes,"  and  were  compelled  by  fate 
to  lead  their  barbarian  people  in  an  invasion  of  Greece. 
Matthew  Arnold  follows  Ovid  in  making  them  "  among 
the  green  lUyrian  hills,"  — 

"  Wholly  forget  their  first  sad  life  and  home, 
And  all  that  Theban  woe,  and  stray 
Forever  through  the  glens,  placid  and  dumb." 

But  Euripides  represents  the  old  king  as  filled  with 
evil  presentiment :  — 

"  Far  off  to  barbarous  men, 
A  grey-haired  wanderer,  I  must  take  my  road. 
And  then  the  oracle,  the  doom  of  God, 
That  I  must  lead  a  raging  horde  far-flown 
To  prey  on  Hellas;  lead  my  spouse,  mine  own 
Harmonia,  Ares'  child,  discorporate 
And  haunting  forms,  dragon  and  dragon  mate, 
Against  the  tomb  and  altar  stones  of  Greece, 
Lance  upon  lance  behind  us;  and  not  cease 
From  toils  like  other  men  —  nor  dream,  nor  past 
The  foam  of  Acheron  find  my  peace  at  last."  * 

Pindar  in  his  radiant  vision  ,of  the  future  life  beyond 
the  foam  of  Acheron  places  Cadmus  with  Peleus  in  the 

*  BacchcB,  1354.  This  and  the  following  quotations  from  this  play 
are  taken  from  the  translation  by  Gilbert  Murray. 


THEBES  AND  BOEOTIA  275 

company  of  the  mighty  dead  who  dwell  at  peace  for- 
ever within  the  islands  of  the  Blest.  The  earthly  Hfe  of 
both  heroes  he  uses  to  illustrate  to  Hieron,  lord  of  Syra- 
cuse and  Fortune's  favourite,  the  adage  inherited  from 
the  men  of  old :  "  For  every  boon  to  men  the  gods  deal 
double  bane." 

•  Blest  with  life  secure  was  neither  Peleus,  son  of  ^Eacus, 
nor  Cadmus,  match  of  gods.  And  yet,  't  is  said,  of  mortals 
all 't  was  they  who  gained  the  highest  bliss.  For  they  could 
hear  the  golden-snooded  Muses'  song,  or  on  the  mountain- 
side, or  midst  the  seven  gates  of  Thebes,  when  Cadmus  took 
to  wife  large-eyed  Harmonia  and  when  the  other  wed  the 
glorious  Thetis,  maiden  child  of  Nereus.  Gods  shared  \yith 
both  their  banquet,  and  they  both  beheld  the  sons  of  Cro- 
nos seated,  kings  on  thrones  of  gold,  and  from  them  wed- 
ding gifts  received,  and  Zeus's  grace  requited  them  for 
former  toil,  uplifting  high  their  hearts.  Yet  in  the  after- 
time  sharp  anguish  of  his  daughters  three  robbed  Cadmus' 
of  his  share  of  joy.  So  too  from  him,  whom  as  her  only  son 
immortal  Thetis  bare  in  Phthia  unto  Peleus,  fled  his  life, 
by  arrow  sped  in  war. 

Pindar's  song  of  praise  "  flitting  like  a  bee  from  tale 
to  tale"  paused  often  upon  the  legends  of  his  "mother 
.  Thebes."  Among  others  he  tells  the  story  of  Heracles's 
birth  at  Thebes  and  of  his  speedy  slaying,  while  yet 
in  swaddling  clothes,  of  monstrous  snakes  that  ap- 
proached his  cradle.  The  most  tragic  episode  of  Hera- 
cles's life,  his  madness  and  his  murder  of  his  children, 
also  occurred  at  Thebes,  according  to  the  version  of 
the  legend  used  by  Euripides  in  his  drama  of  "The 


276   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Mad  Heracles."  But  this  play  is  of  little  poetic  im- 
portance in  comparison  with  the  plays  that  deal  with  the 
curse-haunted  house  of  Cadmus.  Neither  Euripides  nor 
Sophocles,  in  their  single  extant  experiments  with  the 
tragedy  of  Heracles,  display  the  sympathetic  genius 
which  has  given  permanent  value  to  the  stories  of  Pen- 
theus  and  CEdipus.  The  two  plays,  however,  which 
rest  upon  these  legends  are  famous  for  antipodal  rea- 
sons. The  "(Edipus  Tyrannus"  of  Sophocles  was  se- 
lected by  Aristotle  as  the  most  perfect  specimen,  in 
technical  construction,  of  the  Greek  drama,  and  is 
treasured  now  as  the  model  of  what  is  most  restrained, 
most  profound  yet  clear,  most  "Hellenic"  in  Greek 
literature.  The  "Bacchae"  of  Euripides,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  more  "  un-Hellenic "  than  any  play  or  poem 
that  has  come  down  to  us,  more  resplendent  in  fancy, 
more  wild  in  theme,  more  incomprehensible  in  purpose. 
Pentheus  was  the  son  of  Agave  and  the  grandson  and 
successor  of  Cadmus.  But  his  fame  was  bom  of  his 
futile  conflict  with  another  daughter's  greater  son. 
Semele,  loved  by  Zeus  and  at  her  own  request  visited 
by  him  in  the  full  panoply  of  his  splendour,  had  been 
consumed  in  the  lightning's  fire,  and  her  child  Diony- 
sus had  been  snatched  from  her  womb  by  its  divine 
father  and  hidden  within  his  own  thigh  to  issue  in  time 
as  the  strangest  of  all  the  gods.  Popularly  known  as 
the  "god  of  wine,"  he  was  in  reality  a  Lord  of  Many 
Voices,  a  Spirit  of  Guiding  Fire,  a  Mountain  Bull,  a 
Snake  of  a  Hundred  Heads,  a  Master  of  the  Voices  of 


THEBES   AND  BCEOTIA  277 

the  Night,  a  Lover  of  Peace,  a  Giver  of  Good  Gifts, 
a  God,  a  Beast,  a  Mystery.  His  worship,  originating 
among  the  gloomy  Thracians  and  the  mystical  yet 
sensuous  Orientals,  was  late  in  winning  its  place  in 
cultivated  Athens.  Only  with  very  great  difficulty  can 
we  discover  the  threads  of  belief  which  made  out  of  the 
newcomer  a  gracious  lord  of  the  vintage,  a  dispeller  of 
care  and  teacher  of  mirth,  a  prophet,  a  guide  in  all  the 
arts  of  civilization  and,  more  mysteriously  still,  a  suf- 
fering god,  both  redeemer  and  redeemed,  a  companion 
at  Eleusis  of  Demeter  and  Persephone.  Because,  how- 
ever, of  the  persistent  clarity  of  the  Greek  imagination, 
the  god  now  and  again  emerges  from  amid  the  chaos 
of  functions  and  attributes  in  a  concrete  form  of  beauty. 
In  the  Homeric  Hymn  written  in  his  praise  he  is  a 
youth  with  dark  hair  and  dark  and  smiling  eyes  stand- 
ing on  a  headland  that  juts  above  the  unharvested  sea, 
while  the  ocean  winds  blow  about  his  shoulders  a  pur- 
ple robe.  To  Euripides  he  is  — 

"  A  man  of  charm  and  spell,  from  Lydian  seas, 
A  head  all  gold  and  cloudy  fragrancies, 
A  wine-red  cheek,  and  eyes  that  hold  the  light 
Of  the  very  Cyprian." 

The  distinguishing  feature  of  all  Dionysiac  worship 
was  the  frenzied  raving  of  its  votaries.  Women  espe- 
cially were  mastered  by  the  strange  desire  to  join  in  the 
revels,  and,  since  the  intellectualized  life  of  Athens  was 
hostile  to  insane  manifestations  of  religious  fervour, 
Athenian  women  made  frequent  pilgrimages  to  places 


278   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

where  the  wildness  of  nature  welcomed  the  wildness 
in  the  heart  of  man.  We  have  already  seen  them  travel- 
ling to  the  uplands  of  Parnassus.  Mount  Cithaeron 
was  another  favourite  gathering  place.  The  women  in 
Aristophanes's  " Thesmophoriazusae  "  cry  aloud:  — 

Sing,  evoe !  and  sing  again, 

Shout  for  Bacchus  the  glad  refrain. 

Cithaeron  echoes  around  thee,  hark! 

And  the  mountain  coverts  green  and  dark, 

And  a  roaring  comes  floating  adown,  between, 

Through  bosky  gorge  and  rocky  ravine. 

Perhaps  the  most  adventurous  would  sometimes  make 
their  way  to  the  bleak  hills  near  Pella,  the  capital  of 
Macedonia,  where  queen  and  peasant  met  in  Bacchic 
excesses.  Euripides  spent  the  last  years  of  his  life  at 
Pella,  and  it  has  been  thought  that  there  he  conceived 
the  idea  of  writing  a  play  to  portray  Dionysus's  tri- 
umphal entrance  into  Thebes  against  the  will  of  Pen- 
theus.  Be  this  as  it  may,  certainly  Thebes  and  Cithae- 
ron are  more  than  a  perfunctory  mise-en-schne  for  the 
"Bacchae."  In  no  other  Greek  play  is  the  reader  so 
conscious  of  the  presence  of  landscape. 

Dionysus  comes  from  the  East  to  defend  his  mo- 
ther's memory  and  to  establish  his  worship  in  her  city. 
Pentheus  opposes  him  in  spite  of  the  wisdom  of  Cad- 
mus and  the  warnings  of  the  soothsayer  Tiresias.  The 
god  constrains  the  women  of  Thebes,  including  Pen- 
theus's  mother  and  her  sisters,  who  long  ago  had 
tempted  the  young  Semele  to  her  destruction,  to  follow 
him  to  Moimt  Cithaeron.   Pentheus  is  then  led  to  spy 


THEBES  AND   BCEOTIA  279 

upon  their  revels.  They  take  him  for  a  wild  beast  and 
his  own  mother  tears  him  to  pieces.  At  the  end,  re- 
stored to  an  agonized  reason,  she  becomes  an  exile 
from  her  home.  Cadmus  goes  to  his  fate  among  the 
Illyrians.  Dionysus  is  rapt  from  mortal  sight  in  a  cloud. 
It  is  a  disputed  question  whether  Euripides  was  moved 
to  this  portrayal  of  a  cruel  godhead  by  the  subtlest  im- 
piety, or  by  a  belated  desire  to  be  considered  orthodox, 
or  by  a  realization  of  the  savage  power  that  lies  at  the 
heart  of  life  and  cannot  be  gainsaid.  At  any  rate  he 
has  woven  into  the  plot  the  pathos  of  which  he  is  mas- 
ter, in  the  reiterated  suggestions  of  the  tie  between 
parent  and  child :  the  young  god  stirred  to  triumphant 
action  by  the  memory  of  his  dead  mother;  the  living 
mother  wildly  bringing  her  son's  head  in  from  the 
mountain,  and  calling  upon  him  to  come  and  glory  in 
her  lion- hunting ;  the  old  father  deciding  to  lead  his 
daughter  back  from  the  shadows  of  madness,  even  if 
the  path  of  truth  ends  in  grief  and  pain.  And  the  whole 
nexus  of  religion,  pathos,  and  inherited  curse  is  spread 
before  us  in  colours  of  flame. 

The  play  is  pervaded  by  the  dances  and  the  songs  of 
the  Maenads  who  have  followed  Dionysus — 

"  From  Asia,  from  the  dayspring  that  uprises,"    ' 

and  who  irresistibly  draw  to  their  ranks  the  matrons  and 
maidens  of  Thebes :  — 

"  All  hail,  O  Thebes,  thou  nurse  of  Semele ! 
With  Semele's  wild  ivy  crown  thy  tresses, 
Oh,  burst  in  bloom  of  wreathing  bryony, 
Berries  and  leaves  and  flowers; 


28o   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Uplift  the  dark  divine  wand, 
The  oak-wand  and  the  pine -wand, 
And  don  thy  fawn-skin,  fringed  in  purity 
With  fleecy  white,  like  ours. 

"  Oh,  cleanse  thee  in  the  wands'  waving  pride ! 
Yea,  all  men  shall  dance  with  us  and  pray, 
When  Bromios  his  companions  shall  guide 
Hill  ward,  ever  hill  ward,  where  they  stay, 
The  flock  of  the  Believing, 
The  maids  from  loom  and  weaving 
By  the  magic  of  his  breath  borne  away." 

The  picture  of  the  women  as  they  finally  have  taken 
possession  of  Cithaeron  is  painted  for  Pentheus  by  a 
shepherd.  Upon  this  passage  and  a  few  others  in  the 
play  rests  Mr.  Symonds's  discriminating  statement 
that  "the  *  Bacchae/  like  the  '  Birds,'  proves  what  other- 
wise we  might  have  hardly  known,  that  there  lacked  not 
Greeks  for  whom  the  'Tempest'  and  *A  Midsummer 
Night's  Dream'  would  have  been  intelligible."  And 
for  this  magic  not  only  Euripides's  brilliant  fancy  but 
also  Mount  Cithaeron  itself  is  responsible. 

"  Our  herded  kine  were  moving  in  the  dawn 
Up  to  the  peaks,  the  grayest,  coldest  time. 
When  the  first  rays  steal  earthward,  and  the  rime 
Yields,  when  I  saw  three  bands  of  them.   The  one 
Autonoe  led,  one  Ino,  one  thine  own 
Mother,  Agave.   There  beneath  the  trees 
Sleeping  they  lay,  like  wild  things  flung  at  ease 
In  the  forest;  one  half  sinking  on  a  bed 
Of  deep  pine  greenery;  one  with  careless  head 
Amid  the  fallen  oak  leaves;  all  most  cold 
In  purity  —  not  as  thy  tale  was  told 
Of  wine-cups  and  wild  music  and  the  chase 
For  love  amid  the  forest's  loneliness." 


THEBES   AND  BCEOTIA  281 

The  lowing  kine  awake  them  and  they  gird  on  their 
dappled  fawn-skins :  — 

"  Then  they  pressed 
Wreathed  ivy  round  their  brows,  and  oaken  sprays 
And  flowering  bryony.   And  one  would  raise 
Her  wand  and  smite  the  rock,  and  straight  a  jet 
Of  quick  bright  water  came.   Another  set 
Her  thyrsus  in  the  bosomed  earth,  and  there 
Was  red  wine  that  the  god  sent  up  to  her, 
A  darkling  fountain.   And  if  any  lips 
Sought  whiter  draughts,  with  dipping  finger-tips 
They  pressed  the  sod,  and  gushing  from  the  ground 
Came  springs  of  milk.   And  reed-wands  ivy-crowned 
Ran  with  sweet  honey,  drop  by  drop." 

The  curse  laid  upon  Cadmus  destroyed  all  his  daugh- 
ters, and  among  his  grandchildren  not  only  Pentheus 
but  also  Actaeon  who,  because  he  saw  Artemis  at  her 
bath  in  one  of  Cithaeron's  still  pools,  was  torn  to  pieces 
by  his  own  hunting  dogs.  Cadmus's  only  son,  Polydorus, 
and  his  son's  son,  Labdacus,  were  strangely  spared. 
Then  once  more  Nemesis  rose  to  the  pursuit.  The  son 
of  Labdacus  was  Laius,  who  was  unwittingly  murdered 
by  his  son,  CEdipus,  and  the  doom  of  CEdipus  is  the 
subject  of  the  "CEdipus  Tyrannus." 

Cithaeron  still  towers  on  the  horizon;  in  its  "winding 
glens"  the  infant  (Edipus  had  been  exposed  and  res- 
cued by  a  vagrant  hireling  in  charge  of  mountain  flocks. 
But  the  play  takes  us  back  to  the  city,  with  its  royal 
palace  and  temples  and  market-place.  As  usual,  it 
is  the  Thebes  of  Sophocles's  day  that  is  used  for  scen- 
ery. The  drama  opens  when  the  fruitful  country  has 


282   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

been  laid  waste  by  a  pestilence  and  her  citizens  are 
praying  to  Artemis,  whose  temple  stands  in  the  Agora, 
to  Apollo  at  his  oracular  seat  by  the  river  Ismenus, 
and  to  all  the  gods  by  the  altar  in  front  of  the  royal 
palace.  But  in  these  few  hints  all  localized  interest  is 
exhausted.  The  austere  and  disciplined  beauty  of  the 
dramatic  structure  throws  into  high  relief  the  pitiful- 
ness  and  the  terror  of  a  father's  sin  at  work  in  the  third 
and  fourth  generation,  and  of  the  human  struggle 
against  destiny.  The  universal  truth  of  the  tragedy  as 
apprehended  by  Sophocles  was  as  independent  of  the 
walls  of  Thebes  as  of  the  confines  of  the  theatre  in 
Athens.  And  yet  in  modem  Thebes,  itself  the  shadow 
of  a  greater  past,  we  may  realize  afresh  the  catastrophe 
that  befell  the  ancient  king.  He  had  saved  the  city  by 
guessing  the  riddle  of  the  Sphinx  and  thus  destroying 
her.  He  had  been  acclaimed  as  king  in  place  of  Laius, 
slain  by  an  unknown  hand,  and  had  married  locasta, 
Laius's  queen.  Now  he  promises  to  save  his  people 
from  the  pestilence  by  obeying  the  Delphic  command 
that  the  slayer  of  Laius  shall  be  found  and  exiled.  He 
discovers  that  he  is  the  murderer,  and,  in  a  crescendo 
of  horror,  that  he  is  the  son  both  of  the  man  he  murdered 
and  of  his  own  wife.  In  spite  of  their  effort  to  kill  him 
in  his  infancy,  he  has  reappeared,  the  innocent  agent 
of  their  destruction,  as  the  irrefutable  god  of  prophecy 
had  foretold.  locasta  hangs  herself.  (Edipus's  chil- 
dren face  a  world  that  will  remember  against  them  the 
sin  of  their  father.  He  puts  out  his  eyes,  and  goes  into 


THEBES  AND  BCEOTIA  283 

voluntary  exile,  defeated  by  fate,  not  yet  conscious  that 
in  the  surrender  of  his  will  to  God  he  may  atone  and  be 
at  peace.  Borne  from  afar  upon  the  quiet  air  of  to-day 
we  may  hear  ghostly  echoes  of  the  songs  of  his  people. 
He  was  an  exaniple  of  life's  futility :  — 

O  generations  of  mankind, 

How  all  your  life  I  ever  find 

With  Naught  and  Nothingness  aligned! 

For  who,  what  man  the  wide  world  o'er, 

Of  happiness  e'er  gaineth  more 

Than  only  this  —  to  have  his  own 

He  dreams,  and  as  he  dreams  't  is  gone. 

Thy  fate,  thine,  CEdipus,  beholding, 

O  luckless  one,  thy  wretched  fate, 

And  from  it  my  opinion  moulding 

Naught  mortal  I  congratulate. 

And  he  also  exemplified  the  truth  of  Solon's  aphorism 
that  no  one  should  be  congratulated  before  the  end :  — 

Ye  who  dwell  in  Thebes  our  city,  look,  behold  this  CEdipus, 
He  who  solved  the  fam'd  enigma,  and  did  prove  himself  the  best, 
(At  him  who  of  all  his  townsmen  looked  not,  envious  of  his  lot?) 
Now  he's  come  to  what  an  ocean  of  calamity  and  dread! 
Well  it  were  then,  being  mortal,  to  that  last  and  awful  day 
That  we  onward  turn  our  vision  and  count  no  one  fortunate 
Till  the  race  course  he  has  finished  and  has  reached  life's  goal 
unscathed. 

In  spite  of  the  repentance  of  CEdipus,  the  ancient 
curse  fell  upon  his  children,  and  their  dooms  also  be- 
came the  subjects  of  dramas.  ^Eschylus,  in  the  "  Seven 
against  Thebes,"  deals  with  the  story  of  Eteocles  and 
Pol)meices,  whose  own  folly  was  the  immediate  cause 
of  their  ruin.  They  had  agreed  to  rule  Thebes  alter- 
nately, but  Eteocles  once  in  possession  refused  to  ab- 


284   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

dicate.  Polyneices  raises  in  Argos  an  army  led  by 
Adrastus,  with  which  he  advances  against  his  country. 
Civil  war  follows,  and  the  brothers  kill  each  other. 
This  story  gave  ^Eschylus  two  dramatic  opportunities 
peculiarly  suited  to  his  genius.  One  was  the  handling 
of  the  theme  of  Nemesis,  not  with  grave  calm  like 
Sophocles,  but  with  gigantic  vigour,  with  rough-hewn 
figures  of  triple-crested  waves  of  evil,  harvests  of  blood, 
chilling  frosts  of  fear,  with  a  penetrating  insistence 
upon  the  ''black  and  full-grown  curse"  which  shadows 
city  and  citizens.  Within  its  gloom  Eteocles  fights  only 
with  the  ardour  of  despair :  — 

Since  eagerly  God  urgeth  this  affair,  draw  lot, 
.  Cocytus  draw  and,  wind  astern,  sail  down  his  wave  I 
Apollo  hateth  all  the  race  of  Labdacus. 

To  relieve  this  gloom  ^schylus  uses  his  other  dramatic 
opportunity,  that  of  describing  with  Homeric  eloquence 
the  seven  Argive  warriors  stationed  at  the  seven  gates 
and  the  Theban  defenders  sent  to  meet  them.  In  the 
full-mouthed  trimeters  of  the  messenger  who  has  seen 
the  enemy,  and  of  Eteocles  who  is  undaunted  by  his 
report,  echo  stirringly  the  epic  clash  of  arms,  neigh- 
ing of  steeds,  and  war-cries  of  men.  Shields  of  many 
devices  and  crested  helmets  bedeck  the  heroes.  Cour- 
age adorns  them  all,  from  Amphiaraus,  who  foresees 
disaster,  to  Parthenopaeus,  the  Arcadian  metic,  repay- 
ing to  Argos  the  cost  of  his  nurture :  — 

Now  by  his  spear  he  swears  —  which  he  is  confident 
To  reverence  above  the  god  or  his  own  eyes  — 


THEBES  AND  BGEOTIA  285 

The  town  of  the  Cadmeans  he  will  surely  sack 

In  spite  of  Zeus.   Thus  cries  aloud  this  fair-fgced  shoot 

Of  mother  mountain-bred,  a  man  though  boy  in  years. 

His  downy  beard  is  just  appearing  on  his  cheeks, 

As  youth's  prime  makes  it  grow,  the  thick  hair  cropping  out. 

But  he  with  spirit  fierce,  no  maiden's  namesake  this, 

And  terrible  bright  eye,  comes  up  to  take  his  post. 

Nor  yet  without  a  vaunt  stands  he  beside  the  gate, 

For  on  his  bronze-wrought  shield,  his  body's  circled  screen, 

Our  city's  shame  he  wields,  the  raw  flesh  rav'ning  Sphinx, 

Fast  riveted  with  bolts,  her  body  burnish'd-bright 

Repousse  work,  and  under  in  her  grasp  she  bears 

A  man  Cadmean,  that  upon  this  warrior 

Most  thickly  fly  the  bolts.   'T  is  likely,  now  he's  come, 

He'll  not  be  retail-dealer  in  the  trade  of  war. 

Nor  will  he  bring  discredit  on  his  long  road's  track. 

Euripides  used  the  same  story  in  his  "Tyrian  Wo- 
men," but  openly  scorned  the  Homeric  note  of  ^schy- 
lus.  With  the  enemy  at  the  gates  there  is  no  time  to 
describe  the  warriors,  and  the  emphasis  is  shifted  from 
the  horror  of  the  curse  to  the  burden  on  locasta's  heart. 
Still  hving,  she  seeks  to  reconcile  her  sons,  and  at  last 
kills  herself  on  their  dead  bodies.  Polyneices  is  not 
only  his  country's  enemy  but  a  homesick  man  whose 
eyes  grow  wet  when  he  sees  the  familiar  altars  and 
Dirce  and  the  old  gymnasium,  and  who  begs  his  mo- 
ther just  before  he  dies  to  bury  him  in  Thebes.  Anti- 
gone is  brave  enough  to  support  her  mother,  comfort 
her  father,  and  promise  to  bury  her  brother,  but  so 
tenderly  young  that  an  old  servant  helps  her  up  a 
cedam  stairway  to  the  palace  roof  that  she  may  see 
the  Argive  army  in  the  plain.  Another  vision  of  brave 


286   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

youth  is  given  in  the  character  of  Menoeceus,  last  virgin 
descendant  of  the  Sown  Men.  Informed  by  Tiresias 
that  by  a  voluntary  death  he  can  save  Thebes,  he  evades 
his  father  and  makes  one  of  the  patriotic  speeches  that 
never  failed  to  thrill  an  Athenian  audience  in  the  Diony- 
siac  theatre :  — 

Now  I  will  go  and,  standing  on  the  rampart's  heights 
Over  the  deep  dark  dragon-pen,  the  very  spot 
The  seer  described  minutely,  I  will  slay  myself 
And  liberate  my  country. 

The  fame  of  Antigone  was  secured  by  Sophocles. 
Thebes  seems  to  have  been  always  noted  for  the  beauty 
of  its  women,  from  Semele,  the  bride  of  Zeus,  to  the  tall 
yellow-haired  ladies  admired  by  Dicaearchus,  and 
^schylus  suggests  the  loveliness  of  Antigone  as  Euripi- 
des suggests  her  youthfulness.  But  through  Sophocles 
we  know  her  unadorned  as  the  embodiment  of  loyalty 
and  courage.  On  the  sunny  morning  that  followed  the 
defeat  of  the  Argives,  when  the  eye  of  golden  day  had 
at  last  arisen  over  Dirce's  stream,  she  buried  her 
brother  and  defied  Creon's  edict,  which  forbade  burial 
to  an  enemy  of  the  country,  in  a  noble  speech  of  justifi- 
cation :  — 

Not  Zeus  hath  published  this  decree,  not  Zeus  for  me, 
Neither  hath  Justice,  house-mate  with  the  gods  below, 
Laws  like  to  this  defined  for  men.   Nor  did  I  think 
Within  these  edicts,  these  of  thine,  such  strength  inhered 
That,  being  a  mere  mortal,  thou  could'st  override 
Th'  unwritten  and  unfailing  statutes  of  the  gods. 
For  not  of  yesterday  nor  of  to-day  their  life, 
But  ever  from  all  time.   None  knows  their  origin. ' 


THEBES  AND  BCEOTIA  287 

The  Athenian  reverence  for  Law  made  natural  an 
even  more  magnificent  reiteration  of  this  idea  in  the 
"(Edipus  Tyrannus:"  — 

Be  mine  the  lot  to  win  pure  reverence  in  every  word  and 
work  for  which  the  Laws  are  set  on  high,  in  Heaven's  ether 
born  as  children  of  Olympus,  him  alone;  no  mortal  nature 
among  men  gave  birth  to  them  nor  ever  shall  oblivion  lull 
them  to  slumber.  Great  is  God  within  them  and  he  grows 
not  old. 

Beneath  a  neighbouring  hill  Antigone  was  walled  up 
in  one  of  the  rock-cut  caverns  that  abound  in  Greece. 
Her  lover  Haemon,  Creon's  son,  kills  himself  within  the 
\door.  His  mother  takes  her  life,  and  Creon  is  left  to  a 
late  and  impotent  knowledge  of  the  truth.  Before  the 
end  the  chorus  of  Theban  girls  think  of  Antigone's 
betrothal  and  in  a  famous  hymn  to  Love  flash  brief 
fire  upon  the  lonely  moral  heights  of  the  play.  But  sud- 
denly the  song  dissolves  into  a  lamentation  which  still 
haunts  the  ear  in  Thebes :  — 

But  already  I  too  past  all  bounds  of  the  law 
Am  swept  onward  myself  as  I  look  on  this  sight, 
And  the  fount  of  my  tears  I  no  longer  can  check, 
When  Antigone  here  I  behold  as  she  fares 
To  that  chamber  where  all  shall  be  resting. 

In  historic  Thebes  heroism  had  lost  its  lustre.  When 
Greece  was  tested,  the  result  in  this  city  is  revealed  in 
the  laconic  words  of  Herodotus,  that  among  the  Greeks 
who  sent  earth  and  water  to  Xerxes  were  the  Thebans 
and  the  other  Boeotians,  except  the  Plataeans  and  the 


288   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Thespians.  "  The  grace  of  the  olden  time  is  fallen  upon 
sleep,"  Pindar  complained  after  recounting  the  "noble 
deeds''  of  the  heroic  age.  His  own  sympathy  with  the 
national  cause  is  clearly  seen  in  another  ode  written 
after  the  expulsion  of  the  Persians:  "Some  god  has 
turned  aside  the  stone  of  Tantalus  from  overhead,  a 
load  that  Hellas  might  not  brook." 

Later,  when  it  was  regarded  as  a  political  asset  to 
have  opposed  the  Persians,  the  Thebans  defended  their 
failure  on  the  ground  that  they  had  had  neither  con- 
stitutional government  nor  popular  freedom.  A  cabal 
of  selfish  nobles  had  forced  them  into  an  action  abhor- 
rent to  themselves.  Certainly  it  is  true  that  Thebes  was 
always  aristocratic  rather  than  democratic.  And  it  is 
worth  noting  that  Pindar  in  his  art  was  the  true  son  of 
such  a  city.  The  great  festivals  of  Greece  were  the 
immediate  inspiration  of  his  extant  odes,  while  his  life 
in  Athens  and  his  journeys  to  Sicily  and  to  the  eastern 
islands  furnished  him  with  much  poetic  material.  But 
as  far  as  the  "soaring  eagle"  is  to  be  identified  with  a 
birthplace,  we  may  ascribe  to  his  aristocratic  origin 
and  early  environment  his  persistent  selection  of  the 
things  that  were  distinguished  and  splendid. 

At  the  time  of  the  Peloponnesian  War  Thebes  ap- 
pears as  the  bitter  opponent  of  Athens.  But  later  the 
shifting  politics  of  the  time  brought  about  an  alliance 
between  these  two  ancient  enemies  and  set  Thebes 
against  Sparta.  Her  position,  however,  was  one  of 
difficulty  and  humiliation,  buffeted  about  as  she  was 


THEBES  AND  BCEOTIA  289 

between  the  greater  powers.  Finally,  in  the  first  quarter 
of  the  fourth  century,  under  the  influence  of  one  man, 
Thebes  entered  upon  a  period  of  power  and  distinction. 
Brief  as  it  was,  it  served  to  awaken  the  sleeping  glory 
of  the  old  days  and  to  make  men  once  more  mindful 
of  Thebes  of  the  golden  shield.  Epaminondas  inspired 
a  young  Boeotian  party,  roused  the  Theban  people, 
opposed  Sparta  and  defeated  her  by  new  strategic  skill 
at  Leuctra  in  371  b.  c,  renewed  the  ancient  confeder- 
acy of  Boeotian  towns,  won  the  support  of  neighbouring 
states  and  the  sympathy  of  Delphi,  and  finally  marched 
into  the  Peloponnesus  to  oppose  the  unrighteous  de- 
signs of  Sparta.  At  the  battle  of  Mantinea  in  Arcadia 
he  lost  his  life,  before  his  work  for  Thebes  and  Hellas 
was  finished.  It  is  greatly  to  be  regretted  that  a  career 
so  admirable  and  a  personality  so  original  should  not 
have  been  interpreted  by  some  adequate  historian  or 
poet.  He  lived  too  late  for  the  enthusiasm  of  Herodotus 
or  the  justice  of  Thucydides.  That  Xenophon,  through 
his  hatred  of  Thebes,  failed  to  talk  much  of  the  Theban 
general  is  no  great  loss  to  our  imaginative  understand- 
ing of  a  great  man.  Pausanias  in  his  sincere  admiration 
contributes  something:  "Of  the  famous  captains  of 
Greece  Epaminondas  may  well  rank  as  the  first  or  at 
least  as  second  to  none.  For  whereas  the  Lacedaemo- 
nian and  Athenian  generals  were  seconded  by  the 
ancient  glories  of  their  countries  as  well  as  by  soldiers 
of  a  temper  to  match,  Epaminondas  found  his  country 
disheartened  and  submissive  to  foreign  dictation,  yet 


290   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

he  soon  raised  them  to  the  highest  place.'^  Plutarch's 
''Life  of  Epaminondas"  has  not  been  preserved,  but 
this  loss  is  partially  repaired  by  his  "  Life  of  Pelopidas," 
the  companion  in  arms  and  the  passionate  imitator 
of  the  hero,  and  by  his  return  now  and  again  in  other 
writings  to  a  contemplation  of  the  character  of  Epami- 
nondas. Out  of  slight  sketches  Uke  these  and  out  of 
the  second-rate  histories  we  must  fashion  our  portrait. 
Epaminondas  was  a  great  soldier  and  a  leader  of  men. 
These  facts  need  not  be  obscured  by  the  other  fact  that 
he  did  not,  probably  could  not,  establish  a  national 
unity  strong  enough  to  live  on  after  him.  With  him 
died  the  hopes  of  Thebes.  His  fear  of  this  must  have 
been  his  heaviest  burden.  Patriotism  with  him  not  only 
excluded  satisfaction  in  his  own  power,  but  included 
patience  under  attack.  To  us,  familiarized  with  mag- 
nanimous patriotism  in  many  nations,  this  seems  more 
admirable  than  strange.  But  against  the  background 
of  Greek  history  the  statesmen  are  conspicuous  who 
could  have  entirely  understood  the  obedient  spirit  in 
which  Socrates  accepted  condemnation  from  the  city 
he  had  tried  to  serve.  In  Epaminondas  also  appear 
some  of  those  qualities  which  his  contemporary  Plato 
thought  essential  to  a  wise  king.  He  loved  philosophy 
more  than  power,  and  his  early  training  had  been  in- 
tellectual and  moral  rather  than  martial.  Like  Pindar, 
he  belonged  to  the  oldest  nobility  of  Thebes,  tracing 
his  pedigree  to  Cadmus,  but  his  family  had  long  lived 
modestly,  dissociated  from  the  more  vulgar  aristocracy, 


THEBES  AND  BCEOTIA  291 

and  devoted  to  the  intellectual  life.  Philosophers  ex- 
iled from  Southern  Italy  came  to  Thebes  as  well  as 
Athens,  and  among  them  Lysis  of  Tarentum  exer- 
cised a  great  influence  upon  the  young  Epaminondas. 
The  boy's  gentle  nature  and  hardy  will  furnished  an 
ideal  soil  for  the  seeds  of  the  Pythagorean  doctrine, 
which,  before  the  days  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  taught 
the  beauty  of  poverty,  of  temperance,  and  of  humility, 
and  insisted  upon  a  moral  earnestness  and  devotion  to 
duty.  Epaminondas,  the  conqueror  and  liberator,  was 
at  all  times  a  "practical"  follower  of  the  religion  in 
which  he  had  been  nurtured.  And  with  something  of 
his  own  fervour  he  inflamed  the  Sacred  Band,  that  com- 
pany of  "friends"  like  Epaminondas  and  Pelopidas, 
who  inspired  each  other  to  valour  and  to  virtue  and  were 
united  in  the  cause  of  patriotism.  In  this  appeal  to  the 
chivalric  gallantry  of  youth  Epaminondas  was  thor- 
oughly Greek.  In  the  unmarred  consistency  of  his  own 
life  he  was  unapproached  even  by  his  closest  followers. 
As  Pindar  in  his  generation  was  "heavy  at  heart"  over 
Thebes,  so  the  martial  leader  must  often  have  brooded 
in  lonely  impotence  over  the  same  city.  To  travellers 
he  may  appear,  as  dusk  comes  on,  in  the  guise  in  which 
men  found  him  on  an  ancient  holiday,  walking  aloof, 
ungarlanded  and  thoughtful.  "I  am  keeping  guard," 
he  said,  "that  all  of  you  may  be  drunk  and  revel 
securely." 

The  visible  remains  of  ancient  Thebes  are  at  present 
very  few,  and  although  archaeological  research  may 


292    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

reveal  sites  and  fragments  of  great  interest,  we  shall 
never  see  here  ruins  still  clothed  upon  with  beauty. 
Nor  is  the  situation  of  the  town  impressive  enough  to 
attract  travellers  who  are  indifferent  to  .memories  of  the 
past.  The  chief  charm  of  the  place  is  its  view  of  an 
horizon  broken  by  Cithaeron,  Helicon,  and  distant  Par- 
nassus ;  by  Mount  Ptoon,  where  men  listened  to  Apollo, 
and  the  Mountain  of  the  Sphinx. 

Fragments  of  walls  are  all  that  remain  of  the  city's 
fortifications.  Of  the  gates  no  traces  have  been  found. 
Pausanias  speaks  of  seeing  all  seven  gates,  but  he  de- 
scribes only  three  of  them,  and  some  scholars  have 
argued  that  the  other  four  were  invented  by  the  lost 
epic  writers  who  first  gave  literary  form  to  the  Theban 
legends.  Certainly  the  poets  themselves,  ^schylus, 
Euripides,  and  the  later  Alexandrians,  differ  in  their 
lists.  The  only  important  ruins  of  a  building  are  those 
recently  reported  to  have  been  discovered  by  the  Greek 
archaeologists  near  the  Agora.  They  represent  a  palace 
of  the  ''Mycenaean"  period  which  met  its  destruction 
by  fire  and  which  has  been  identified,  under  the  name 
of  "The  House  of  Cadmus,"  with  the  ruins  of  "the 
bridal  chamj^ers  of  Harmonia  and  Semele"  seen  by 
Pausanias.  From  the  historic  period  nothing  remains, 
although  with  the  help  of  broken  pieces  of  marble  and 
stone  we  may  try  to  imagine  the  Temple  of  Ismenian 
Apollo,  second  only  to  Delphi  as  the  seat  of  this  oracu- 
lar god,  in  the  place  of  the  present  church  of  St.  Luke 
on  the  hill  that  rises  by  the  river  St.  John. 


THEBES   AND  BGEOTIA  293 

Dismantled  as  Thebes  was  in  the  time  of  Pausanias, 
his  guides  showed  him  many  places  which  were  asso- 
ciated with  Pindar  or  with  the  legends  embodied  in  the 
Attic  drama.  There  was  the  Observatory  of  Tiresias, 
where  the  blind  prophet  had  listened  intently  to  the 
sharp  cries  and  whirring  wings  of  the  prescient  birds. 
As  if  ageless  in  sorrow,  he  pervades  each  drama  on  the 
curse  of  Cadmus  with  his  futile  vision  of  the  truth,  — 

"  His  robe  drawn  over 
His  old,  sightless  head, 
Revolving  inly 
The  doom  of  Thebes." 

There  was  also  the  tomb  of  Menoeceus,  and  near  by  a 
pillar  marking  the  scene  of  the  duel  between  Eteocles 
and  Polyneices.  The  immediate  neighbourhood  was 
still  called  the  "Dragging  of  Antigone,"  because  over 
it  Antigone  had  to  drag  her  brother's  heavy  body. 

In  addition  to  the  great  Temple  of  Apollo,  with  its 
statues  by  Phidias  and  Scopas,  Pausanias  saw  the 
Temple  of  Artemis,  with  a  statue  by  Scopas;  the 
Temple  of  Heracles,  the  Champion,  the  gables  of 
which  held  the  representations  by  Praxiteles  of  the 
demi-god's  twelve  labours;  the  Temple  of  Dionysus; 
and  the  Temple  of  Cybele  and  Pan  erected  by  Pindar 
so  near  to  his  own  house  that  he  often  heard  the  niusic 
of  the  vesper  services.  Pindar's  house  is  as  unknown 
now  as  if  it  had  not  been  twice  saved  when  Thebes  was 
sacked,  once  by  the  Athenians,  who  remembered  his 
praises  of  their  city,  and  once  by  Alexander,  who  rever- 
enced his  genius. 


294   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

While  these  things  are  irretrievably  lost  or  await  the 
spade,  streams  of  living  water  seem  to  link  the  present 
to  the  past.  The  little  river  of  Hagios  Johannis  has  but 
changed  its  ancient  name  of  Ismenus,  and  the  Plakio- 
tissa,  made  by  several  streams  which  rise  south  of 
Thebes,  is  easily  transformed  into  the  "Dircaean 
streams."  Some  old  masonry  and  tablets  bearing  in- 
scriptions mark  the  tanks  which  irrigate  the  neighbour- 
ing gardens.  Thebes  still  boasts  in  trees  and  flowers  a 
reminiscence  of  its  ancient  fame  for  bloom  and  bright- 
ness. 

Dirce  was  the  queen  of  Thebes  who  cruelly  treated 
her  husband's  niece,  Antiope.  Antiope's  sons,  Amphion 
and  Zethus,  ordered  to  execute  their  mother's  sentence, 
bound  Dirce  instead  to  the  violent  bull.  Only  brief 
fragments  of  the  play  by  Euripides,  called  *' Antiope," 
have  been  preserved;  but  the  sculptured  group  known 
as  the  Farnese  Bull  has  made  the  story  tritely  familiar. 
Amphion  also  raised  the  walls  of  Thebes  by  the  music 
of  his  lyre,  a  story  seized  upon  by  the  poets  from  Horace 
to  Tennyson. 

A  lively  stream  now  called  Paraporti  flows  into  the 
Plakiotissa  on  the  southwest,  and  Theban  women  use 
it  for  their  washing,  unconcerned  with  its  ancient  name 
of "  Spring  of  Ares."  The  cave  near  it  was  the  Dragon's 
Lair,  and  from  the  part  of  the  acropolis  that  rose  above 
it  Menoeceus  plunged  to  his  death.  To  the  northeast, 
in  the  tiny  suburb  of  Hagii  Theodori,  bubbles  the 
spring  of  St.  Theodore,  anciently  called  the  Spring 


THEBES   AND   BCEOTIA  295 

of  CEdipus  because  in  it  the  king  washed  his  guilty 
hands. 

The  events  of  the  heroic  age,  if  they  are  baldly  cata- 
logued in  prose,  lose  for  us  their  charm  and  their  signifi- 
cance. Their  ineffaceable  reality  to  the  historic  Greeks 
may  be  illustrated  by  a  story  current  in  antiquity.  At 
a  conference  in  Arcadia  an  Athenian  envoy  taunted  the 
Thebans  and  the  Argives  with  having  begotten  the 
patricide  CEdipus  and  the  matricide  Orestes.  "Yes," 
answered  Epaminondas,  "but  Thebes  and  Argos 
exiled  them  and  Athens  received  them."  And  yet  he 
would  have  rejoiced  could  he  have  known  that  the 
genius  of  Athens,  in  receiving  the  wandering  Theban 
legends,  had  given  them  an  inmiortal  life. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

BCEOTIA,    CONTINUED 

Helicon  maidens,  the  Muses !  Their  name  be  my  prelude  in  singing ! 
They  in  their  keeping  have  Helicon's  mountain,  majestical,  sacred. 
There  they  go  threading  the  dances  by  violet  pools  of  the  fountain, 
Soft  are  their  feet  as  they  circle  the  altar  of  mighty  Cronlon. 

Hesiod,  Theogony. 

EPAMiNONDAS  told  the  Boeotians  that  their  coun- 
try was  the  stage  of  Ares,  and  several  battles 
fought  on  their  soil  were  of  national  signif- 
icance. At  Leuctra  Epami?iondas  defeated  Sparta.  At 
'Tanagra  Athenians  and  Spartans  first  tried  their 
strength  against  each  other.  At  Delium  the  Athenians 
were  defeated  by  the  Boeotians  in  a  struggle  in  which 
Alcibiades  and  Socrates  took  part.  Alcibiades,  who 
saved  his  master's  life,  afterwards  told  their  friends  that 
in  the  retreat  Socrates  behaved  exactly  as  he  did  in  the 
streets  of  Athens,  "  turning  his  eyes  observantly  from 
side  to  side,  though  drenched  with  rain,  and  calmly 
looking  about  on  friend  and  foe."  Above  all,  at  Chae- 
ronea  and  Platsea  occurred  momentous  events. 

Late  in  September  of  the  year  479  b.  c,  one  hundred 
and  forty-one  years  before  Greek  liberty  was  surren- 
dered at  Chaeronea,  there  was  fought  near  Platasa,  in 
the  plain  between  Cithaeron  and  the  Asopus,  the  last 


BGEOTIA  297 

of  the  battles  "  wherein  the  Medes  of  the  crooked  bows 
were  overthrown."  The  work  begun  at  Marathon  was 
here  completed.  '*  The  rest  of  the  army  died  in  Boeotia" 
was  an  ^Eschylean  line  calculated  to  arouse  an  Athenian 
audience.  And  an  exquisite  Herodotean  story  was 
fostered  if  not  created  by  the  desire  of  the  Greeks  to 
believe  that  the  Persians  had  a  foreboding  of  their  dis- 
aster. Herodotus  had  the  story  from  Thersander  of 
Orchomenus.  A  Theban  gave  a  dinner  to  Mardonius 
and  fifty  Persian  nobles.  The  Persian  who  shared 
Thersander's  couch  said  to  him:  — 

" '  Since  here  at  table  thou  hast  shared  my  food  and 
my  libation,  I  would  leave  with  thee  a  memorial  of  my 
judgment  that  thou  too,  informed  beforehand,  mayest 
know  how  to  plan  for  thy  advantage.  Dost  see  these 
Persians  feasting  here,  and  that  host  which  we  left 
encamping  by  the  river?  Of  all  these  within  brief  space 
of  time  thou  wilt  behold  a  few  survivors  only.'  And 
as  the  Persian  spoke  these  words  he  let  fall  many  tears. 
Whereat  Thersander,  struck  with  wonder  at  his  speech, 
replied:  'Well,  then,  't  were  fitting  to  say  this  to  Mar- 
donius and  to  those  next  after  him  in  honour.'  To  that 
the  other  said:  'My  friend,  what  needs  must  happen 
by  the  will  of  God  it  is  not  possible  for  man  to  turn 
aside,  and  then,  too,  none  is  wont  to  yield  to  warnings, 
however  credible,  and  many  of  us  Persians,  although 
our  eyes  are  opened,  follow  on,  constrained  by  neces- 
sity. This  pang  is  bitterest  of  all,  for  men  to  know 
much  and  to  have  power  over  naught.' " 


298   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

The  battle  of  Plataea  occurred  because  Mardonius, 
the  general  of  Xerxes,  undertook  to  oppose  the  Spartan 
Pausanias,  commander  of  the  Greek  allies,  as  he  was 
making  his  way  over  the  passes  of  Cithaeron,  to  attack 
the  Persians  at  disloyal  Thebes.  The  Plataeans,  true 
to  the  patriotism  they  had  displayed  at  Marathon 
and  Artemisium,  joined  the  Greeks.  The  battle  lasted 
for  some  days  and  was,  as  usual,  retarded  and  com- 
plicated by  the  inability  of  the  Greeks  to  cooperate; 
but  it  ended  in  the  defeat  and  death  of  Mardonius, 
the  capture  of  the  luxurious  Persian  camp,  and  the 
final  discouragement  of  the  Orient.  Herodotus's  ac- 
count of  the  battle  not  only  contains  strategic  details  but 
is  full  of  episodes  which,  even  if  they  are  but  traditional 
or  the  creations  of  his  own  audacious  vivacity,  illus- 
trate the  truth  that  the  conflict  was  one  of  civilizations 
and  of  ideals.  The  Persian  cavalry  leader,  Macistius, 
glows  in  scarlet  and  gold,  and  when  he  is  killed  his  men 
fill  all  Boeotia  with  the  clamour  of  their  grief.  The 
Greek  officers  show  his  naked  body  to  their  soldiers 
because  it  is  "  worth  seeing  for  its  stature  and  beauty." 
Mardonius  gallops  in  on  his  snow-white  charger  where 
the  fight  is  hottest  and  leads  to  death  the  picked  guard 
of  one  thousand  men,  the  flower  of  the  Persian  army. 
A  Spartan  kills  him,  but  Pausanias  refuses  to  maltreat 
his  dead  body  even  though  the  Persians  had  crucified 
the  body  of  the  Spartan  Leonidas  at  Thermopylae.  In 
the  camp  of  Mardonius  are  found  a  silver  throne,  a 
brass  manger  for  the  horses,  and  countless  utensils  of 


BCEOTIA  299 

Oriental  luxury.  Pausanias  orders  served  on  the  same 
spot  a  Spartan  supper. 

Modern  historians  have  complained  that  Herodotus 
perpetuated  and  "  consecrated  "  the  illusion  of  the  Athe- 
nians that  they  played  a  worthy  part  in  the  battle, 
while  in  reality  they  were  but  half-hearted  and  the 
battle  was  won  by  the  "discipUne  and  prowess  of  the 
Spartan  hoplites."  Herodotus  did,  however,  admit 
that  though  the  Athenians  fought  well  the  Lacedae- 
monians fought  better,  and  when,  with  characteristic 
Greek  emphasis  on  individuals,  he  discussed  which 
single  men  were  most  courageous,  he  assigned  the  first 
four  places  to  Spartans. 

In  any  case  the  Spartans  did  not  fail  to  receive  full 
credit  for  the  victory  from  their  contemporaries.  Pin- 
dar called  Plataea  the  glory  of  the  Lacedaemonians  as 
Salamis  was  the  glory  of  the  Athenians.  And  ^Eschylus, 
even  within  the  Dionysiac  theatre,  attributed  the  Per- 
sian defeat  to  the  "Dorian  spear."  Perhaps  no  one 
regretted  that  both  the  Athenian  and  Spartan  dead  who 
were  buried  on  the  battlefield  were  honoured  in  epi- 
taphs by  Simonides.  For  the  Athenians  he  wrote  with 
dignity :  — 

If  valour's  best  apportionment 

Be  noble  death, 
To  us,  elect,  hath  Fortune  lent 

This  victor  wreath. 
For  Hellas  Freedom's  crown  to  gain 

We  made  the  quest, 
And  ageless  glory  we  attain 

Here  laid  to  rest. 


300    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

But  the  Spartans  inspired  his  finer  eloquence:  — 

"Glory  unquenchable  their  country 

Hath  on  her  brow, 
But  death's  pale  cloud  the  men  who  crowned  her 

Enfoldeth  now. 
Yet,  dead,  they  die  not.   Glory's  herald 

Descends  the  dome 
And  from  the  halls  of  Death,  triumphant, 

Now  leads  them  home. 

When  Plataea  next  appears  in  a  great  passage  of  lit- 
erature she  is  shorn  of  her  glory,  the  helpless  prey  of 
a  foreign  enemy  and  a  hostile  neighbour.  During  the 
Peloponnesian  War,  in  431  b.  c,  the  Spartans  con- 
quered the  city  and,  to  please  the  Thebans,  razed  it  to 
the  ground.  Thucydides's  account  of  the  tragic  oc- 
currence includes  the  speeches  made  to  the  Spartans 
by  the  Plataeans,  who  prayed  for  their  lives,  and  by  the 
Thebans,  who  urged  their  murder.  That  no  speeches 
in  Thucydides  are  more  dramatic  has  been  generally 
conceded  from  the  time  of  Dionysius  of  Halicamassus. 
They  have  made  it  bitter  even  now  to  remember  that 
the  selfish  opportunism  and  merciless  rancour  of  the 
Thebans  prevailed  against  the  memories  of  "  the  great 
days  of  old,"  invoked  by  the  Plataeans:  "Look  yon- 
der to  the  sepulchres  of  your  fathers  slain  by  the  Medes 
and  buried  in  this  land.  Them  we  have  honoured  year 
by  year  with  public  offerings  of  raiment  and  such  other 
things  as  usage  calls  for.  .  .  .  Pausanias  gave  them 
burial  here  because  he  felt  that  he  was  placing  them . 
with  friends  and  in  a  friendly  land.    But  you,  if  you 


BCEOTIA  301 

shall  slay  us  and  shall  make  Plataea  Theban  land,  what 
do  you  else  in  this  than  leave  your  fathers  and  your  kins- 
men, bereft  of  honours  that  are  theirs,  among  murderers 
and  in  a  hostile  land  ?  Nay  more,  you  will  actually  en- 
slave a  country  in  which  the  Hellenes  won  their  liberty 
and  bring  to  desolation  sanctuaries  of  the  gods  in  which 
they  prayed  before  they  gained  mastery  over  the  Medes." 

The  desolation  fell.  Later  the  little  town  was  rebuilt, 
destroyed  once  more,  and  finally  restored,  though 
somewhat  meanly,  in  the  time  of  Alexander.  Now 
not  even  a  modem  village  brings  life  to  the  ancient 
site.    Only  ruins  of  the  Alexandrian  walls  remain. 

Boeotia  had  several  important  religious  centres  out- 
side of  Thebes.  More  penetrating  than  the  trumpet 
of  war  were  the  voices  that  called  the  Greeks  of  north 
and  south,  and  even  the  barbarians  of  the  east,  to  the 
sanctuary  of  oracular  Apollo  on  the  slopes  of  Mount 
Ptoon,  or  to  the  oracle  of  Trophonius  (a  local  deity 
probably  to  be  identified  with  Zeus)  at  Lebadeia,  which 
is  beautifully  situated  on  the  western  side  of  the  Copaic 
plain  looking  toward  Helicon  and  Parnassus.  The 
Ptoon  precinct  was  already  abandoned  in  Plutarch's 
time,  and  even  more  deserted  than  it  is  to-day  when 
archaeologists  outnumber  the.  occasional  shepherds 
in  search  of  mountain  pasture.  But  the  oracle  of 
Lebadeia  retained  its  sanctity  into  Roman  times  and 
its  voice  was  heard  by  Plutarch  and  Pausanias.  In 
our  day  the  same  river  in  which  the  suppliants  used 
to  bathe,  in  preparation  for  the  difficult  sacred  rites, 


302   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

turns  the  mills  and  factories  of  one  of  the  busiest  in- 
dustrial centres  of  northern  Greece. 

Religion  in  Boeotia,  as  everywhere  in  Greece,  fur- 
nished an  artistic  impulse.  Contests  of  poetry  and 
music  were  held  at  almost  every  centre.  Architecture, 
sculpture,  and  painting  were  represented  by  the  most 
famous  masters.  A  temple  renowned  for  its  beauty 
was  that  of  the  Graces  at  Orchomenus.  Within  it,  on  a 
happy  day  in  the  fifth  century,  a  chorus  of  boys  lustily 
sang  an  ode  written  by  Pindar  for  one  of  their  fellows 
who  had  won  a  foot-race  in  Pisa's  famous  valley.  The 
young  champion  had  doubtless  illustrated  the  influ- 
ence of  his  native  divinities  whom  the  poet  celebrates :  — 

O  ye  who  have  your  dwelling  in  the  land  of  goodly  steeds 
that  shares  the  waters  of  Cephisus,  Queens  of  radiant 
Orchomenus,  O  Graces  famed  in  song,  ye  Guardians  of  the 
Minyans  in  ages  gone,  give  ear!  To  you  I  pray!  For  by 
your  gift  come  all  things  sweet  and  pleasant  unto  man  — 
his  wisdom,  beauty,  and  the  sheen  of  victory.  Nay,  not 
the  gods  themselves  can  lord  it  over  dance  or  festival  with- 
out the  Graces  pure,  for  as  comptrollers  of  all  heaven's 
deeds  they  have  their  thrones  beside  Apollo,  Python-slayer 
with  the  golden  bow,  and  reverence  th'  Olympian  Father's 
majesty  eterne. 

To  modems  the  most  familiar  of  all  the  shrines  of 
Boeotia  is  that  of  the  Muses  on  Mount  Helicon.  So 
familiar,  indeed,  has  it  become  through  tradition  and 
poetry  that  its  geographical  position  is  as  unimportant 
as  that  of  Raphael's  Parnassus.  It  almost  perplexes  us 


BCEOTIA  303 

to  localize  Helicon  as  the  eastern  peak,  now  called 
Zagora,  of  the  southern  portion  of  the  group  of  moun- 
tains that  lie  between  the  Copaic  plain  and  the  Gulf  of 
Corinth ;  and  to  know  that  at  the  northern  foot  of  this 
peak  still  nestles  the  valley,  green  and  shady  and  tra- 
versed by  a  mountain  stream,  where  once  foregathered 
the  iris-haired,  golden-snooded  Muses.  Hippocrene 
even,  struck  out  by  the  hoof  of  Pegasus  as  he  flew 
toward  heaven,  is  identified  with  the  modem  Kryo- 
pegadi,  a  very  cold  and  clear  perennial  spring  high  up 
on  the  eastern  side  of  the  mountain  within  a  little  green 
glade  encircled  by  fir  trees.  Helicon  is  still  the  home 
of  fir-woods,  oak  groves  and  strawberry  shrubs.  Pau- 
sanias  said  that  nowhere  else  could  the  goats  find 
sweeter  berries,  and  nowhere  else  could  be  found  so 
many  healing  herbs.  Hellebore,  the  ancient  cure  for 
madness,  grew  here  in  abundance. 

In  spite  of  the  almost  incalculable  importance  of  the 
worship  of  the  Muses  and  their  pervasive  presence  in 
poetry,  Greek  literature  scarcely  concerns  itself  with 
their  localized  abode.  Sophocles  breaks  the  strain  of 
the  "(Edipus  Tyrannus"  by  a  fleeting  vision  of  the 
nymphs  sporting  with  Dionysus  on  the  far-off  heights 
of  HeUcon.  And  Hesiod  was  inspired  to  write  his  "  The- 
ogony"  by  a  vision  of  the  Muses  that  came  to  him  as 
he  slept  on  the  mountain  "majestical,  sacred:"  — 

High  on  the  summit  of  Helicon  chorals  they  sing  to  their  dancing, 
Lovely,  desire-enchaining,  yet  strong  and  with  supple  feet  glanc- 
ing. 


304   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Thence  in  tumultuous  riot,  with  veils  of  the  darkness  enringing, 
Onward  they  fare  in  the  night,  and  lovely  the  voice  of  their  singing. 

For  the  most  part  it  is  only  in  Alexandrian  poetry,  from 
which  Roman  poetry  derived  a  large  part  of  the  material 
which  it  passed  on  to  modem  poetry,  that  we  find 
Helicon  and  Hippocrene  figuratively  used  as  sources 
of  inspiration. 

Certain  Boeotian  towns  illustrate  other  traditions  of 
culture.  Thespiae,  in  the  territory  of  Plataea,  was  used 
by  Cicero  to  illustrate  what  was  so  little  understood 
and  so  greatly  scorned  by  the  Romans  —  the  Greek 
love  of  art.  Nothing  could  so  embitter  the  conquered 
people  of  Greece  as  to  take  from  them  or  pretend  to 
buy  from  them  their  works  of  art.  "Believe  me," 
Cicero  urges,  "no  community  in  the  whole  of  Greece  or 
Asia  ever  sold  of  its  own  accord  to  anybody  any  statue 
or  picture  or  civic  ornament.  For  the  Greeks  take  mar- 
vellous delight  in  things  which  we  despise.  What  would 
the  Thespians  take  for  their  Eros,  the  only  thing  that 
attracts  visitors  to  their  town  ?  "  This  was  the  Praxitelean 
statue  which  the  sculptor  himself  ranked  with  his  Faun 
as  his  best  work  and  which  Phryne  obtained  from  him 
and  presented  to  her  native  city.  Eros  was  the  tutelar 
divinity  of  the  place,  originally  worshipped  in  the  form 
of  an  unwrought  stone.  The  statue,  called  forth  by  the 
aesthetic  taste  of  a  later  age  and  passionately  appreciated 
by  the  people,  was  taken  to  Rome  by  Caligula,  returned 
by  Claudius,  stolen  again  by  Nero.  Pausanias  saw  only 
a  copy  when  he  was  at  Thespiae.  Now  no  copy  like  the 


BGEOTIA  505 

familiar  Capitoline  copy  of  the  Faun  supplies  us  with 
half  knowledge.  But  a  visible  symbol  of  Thespiae's  other 
claim  to  remembrance  has  been  left  to  us,  to  enrich  the 
fragmentary  wall  and  the  few  foundations  that  alone 
at  present  mark  the  ancient  site.  Not  only  did  the  city 
share  in  the  victory  of  Plataea,  but  more  daringly  in 
earlier  years,  when  the  struggle  with  Persia  was  on  the 
"razor's  edge"  of  uncertainty,  she  had  sent  her  strong- 
est men  to  die  with  Leonidas  at  Thermopylae.  The 
fragments  of  a  stone  lion  similar  to  the  lion  of  Chaeronea 
are  thought  to  mark  the  grave  of  these  sons  of  Thespiae 
who  were  inspired  by  — 

"  An  ardour  not  of  Eros'  lips." 

In  the  eastern  valley  of  the  Asopus,  or  Vourieni,  lie 
the  not  inconsiderable  remains  of  ancient  Tanagra, 
a  city  more  popularly  known  to-day  for  its  artistic  taste 
than  any  other  Greek  city,  except  Athens.  As  early 
as  1874  excavations  of  its  necropolis  began  to  yield  in 
extraordinary  abundance  the  small  terra-cotta  figures 
which  now  adorn  many  museums,  and  in  copies,  more 
or  less  successful,  have  become  a  staple  article  of  mod- 
em trade.  These  figurines,  rough  in  finish  though  very 
often  lovely  in  shape,  were  objects  of  familiar  use  to 
the  Tanagrians,  being  thrown  into  graves  at  burials. 
Other  things  in  the  city  implied  more  civic  pride. 
Pausanias  mentions  approvingly  the  unusually  good 
taste  of  the  inhabitants  in  separating  their  religious 
buildings  from  the  business  and  residence  portions 


3o6   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

of  the  city.  And  Dicaearchus  is  enthusiastic  over  their 
fine  houses,  adorned  with  porticoes  and  encaustic 
paintings.  Literature  also  had  its  place,  for  here  lived 
Corinna,  a  woman  of  no  mean  poetic  talent.  Pausanias 
saw  her  tomb  in  an  honoured  place  in  the  city  and  a 
picture  of  her  in  the  Gymnasium  binding  on  her  head 
a  fillet  to  celebrate  a  victory  over  Pindar  at  Thebes. 
With  unexpected  acumen  he  remarks  thai  she  prob- 
ably owed  her  victory  partly  to  the  fact  that  she  wrote 
in  a  dialect  intelligible  to  the  Boeotians,  and  partly  to 
her  beauty.  Modems. know  her  through  the  story  that 
she  advised  Pindar  to  use  mythological  allusions,  and 
after  his  first  experiment  told  him  that  she  had  meant 
him  to  sow  with  the  hand,  not  with  a  sack ;  and  through 
her  own  haunting  fragment  of  song:  ''Among  the 
white-armed  women  of  Tanagra,  a  city  made  famous 
by  sweet  soprano  voices.''  Such  evidences  of  culture 
are  the  more  surprising  when  we  learn  from  Dicaearchus 
that  Tanagra  was  a  town  of  farmers.  Their  bluff 
straightforwardness,  their  kindliness  and  their  simple 
living  greatly  impressed  him  in  comparison  with  the 
insolence  and  dissipation  of  the  Thebans. 

Dicaearchus  describes  also  with  a  few  graphic  words 
the  inhabitants  of  Anthedon,  a  fishing  town  on  the 
Gulf  of  Euboea :  "  They  are  almost  all  fishermen,  earn- 
ing their  livelihood  by  their  hooks,  by  the  purple  shell, 
and  by  sponges.  They  grow  old  on  the  beach,  among 
the  seaweed  and  in  their  huts.  They  are  all  men  of 
ruddy  countenance  and  spare  figure;   their  nails  are 


BGEOTIA  307 

worn  away  by  reason  of  working  constantly  in  the  sea."  * 
This  town,  —  still  lovely,  it  is  said,  when  the  sunset  illu- 
mines the  lilac  hills  of  Euboea  and  rose-colour  clouds 
float  above  the  little  fishing-boats  in  the  bay,  —  furnished 
to  literature  an  important  character  in  Glaucus,  a 
fisherman  who,  by  eating  a  certain  grass,  became  a  sea- 
god  with  the  gift  of  prophecy.  Many  tales  were  told 
of  him  from  time  to  time,  especially  by  seafaring  men. 
iEschylus  wrote  two  plays,  not  now  extant,  with  him 
as  the  central  figure,  and  thence  the  subject  passed  into 
the  poetic  storehouse  of  the  Alexandrian  playwrights. 
Plato  made  use  of  the  legend  in  one  of  his  noblest 
presentations  of  idealism.  The  soul  marred  by  its 
association  with  the  body  and  with  the  evils  of  human 
life  is  like  the  old  sea- god,  overgrown  with  shellfish  and 
seaweed,  wounded  and  broken  by  the  action  of  the 
waves.  But  if  the  soul  would  always  love  wisdom  and 
pursue  the  divine,  it  would  be  lifted  out  of  the  sea  in 
which  it  now  is  and  be  forever  disencumbered  of  its 
rocky  covering. 

South  of  Anthedon,  on  the  strait  of  Euripus,  lies 
Aulis,  of  stately  memory.  To  us  as  to  Odysseus  it  is, 
as  it  were,  but  "yesterday  or  the  day  before"  that  the 
Achaean  ships  were  gathering  in  Aulis  freighted  with 
trouble  for  Priam  and  the  Trojans,  and  hecatombs 
were  being  offered  on  the  altars  beneath  a  beautiful 
plane  tree  by  a  stream  of  bright  water.  Here  too  Iphi- 
geneia  was  sacrificed  at  the  altar  of  Artemis.  The  story 

*  Translated  by  Frazer. 


3o8   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

is  told  by  Euripides,  in  the  "Iphigeneia  in  Aulis,"  in  a 
way  to  bring  out  the  latent  heroism  of  the  young. 
Iphigeneia  grieves  to  leave  the  sunlight  and  clings  to  her 
mother,  but  in  the  end  with  splendid  daring  offers  her- 
self a  willing  sacrifice:  "Mother,  hear  my  words,"  she 
cries,  — 

Not  for  thyself  alone,  but  for  the  Hellenes  all 
Thou  barest  me. 

In  the  lyric  recital  of  ^Eschylus  she  is  pathetically  the 
victim :  — 

Father,  father!  thus  she  prayed  them, 
But  nor  tears  nor  girl's  youth,  stayed  them, 

Umpire  captains  keen  for  war. 
To  his  helpers  showed  her  sire 
How,  like  kid,  above  the  altar 
Fainting  in  her  robes,  still  higher 
They  should  hold  her,  should  not  falter, 
And,  lest  curse  his  house  should  blight, 
Ward  the  fair  lips,  guard  aright, 
With  the  mouth-gag's  muzzling  might. 

Her  saffron  robe  letting  sweep  to  the  ground, 

She  smote  in  turn  her  slayers  round 

With  bolt  from  her  eyes,  as  in  picture  plain, 

Asking  for  grace.   And  to  speak  she  was  fain. 

For  aforetimes  oft  at  the  tables  laden 

In  her  father's  halls  she  would  sing  as  maiden. 

And  with  virginal  voice  in  his  fortune  rejoice 

When  the  happy  triple  libation  was  poured. 

With  her  loving  father  in  loving  accord. 

What  came  thereafter  I  nor  saw  nor  do  I  say, 
But  arts  of  Calchas  knew  nor  let  nor  stay. 

Justice  freights  the  scale  with  woe 

And  taught  by  suffering  we  know. 


BCEOTIA  309 

Pausanias  saw  the  temple  of  Artemis,  and  within  it 
as  a  revered  relic  a  piece  of  the  wood  from  the  Homeric 
plane  tree.  The  spring  was  also  pointed  out  to  him,  and 
on  a  neighbouring  hill  the  threshold  of  Agamemnon's 
hut.  Those  were  happy  days  for  sight-seers.  To-day 
a  traveller  can  find  only  a  few  remains  of  the  temple, 
near  the  ruined  chapel  of  St.  Nicholas,  a  little  dis- 
tance up  the  valley  which  stretches  inland  from  the 
shore.  But  he  may  stand  on  the  beach  and  watch  tides 
as  strange  and  irregular  as  they  were  when  ^schylus 
described  the  Achaean  host,  troubled  and  held  fast  — 

where  tide  'gainst  tide  comes  surging  back  near  by  the 
shores  of  Aulis  opposite  to  Chalkis. 

The  heart  of  Boeotia's  literature  lies  in  the  Hesiodic 
poetry.  Hesiod  has  a  dual  personality.  As  a  half  mythi- 
cal "titulary  president"  of  a  school  of  poetry  localized 
near  Mount  Helicon  and  rivalling  the  epic  school,  in 
Asia  Minor  and  the  islands,  whose  eponymous  hero 
was  Homer;  as  traditional  author  of  the  "Theogony," 
which  was  the  manual  of  mythology  for  the  Greeks, 
ranking  in  educational  value  almost  with  the  Iliad 
and  Odyssey,  and  of  the  "Works  and  Days,"  which 
was  a  collection  of  widely  accepted  ethical  maxims, 
he  seems  to  lose  his  home  in  Boeotia  and  to  belong  like 
Homer  to  the  whole  of  Greece.  But  unlike  Homer  he 
is  universally  believed  to  have  existed,  and  to  have 
written  a  definite  body  of  poetry  which  only  later  came 
to  include  many  additions  by  unknown  hands.    We 


3IO   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

may,  then,  for  our  purposes,  justly  consider  him  as  an 
individual  with  local  habitation  and  a  name.  His  fam- 
ily, either  before  his  birth  or  while  he  was  a  child,  immi- 
grated from  an  ^olian  colony  in  Asia  Minor  to  ^olian 
Boeotia.  They  were  farmers  and  lived  in  the  little  town 
of  Ascra,  which  was  perched  on  a  conical  hill  opposite 
the  larger  mass  of  Helicon,  to  the  north  of  the  entrance 
to  the  valley  of  the  Muses.  It  was  destroyed  by  Thes- 
piae,  and  was  deserted  in  Pausanias's  time.  But  "the 
tower"  was  standing  which  is  still  a  conspicuous 
landmark  and  gives  to  the  entire  hill  the  name  of 
Pyrgaki.  Modern  travellers  are  attracted  by  the  wide 
and  beautiful  view  which  the  hill  commands. 

Ascra  itself,  in  Hesiod's  peevish  opinion,  was  a  miser- 
able village,  bad  in  winter,  abominable  in  summer,  good 
at  no  time.  He  could,  however,  when  a  boy,  tend  his 
sheep  on  the  slopes  of  Helicon  and  see  the  Muses  in  his 
dreams.  At  some  time  he  had  a  lawsuit  with  his  brother 
about  his  inheritance,  and  became  embittered  by  dis- 
appointment. This  and  the  difficulties  of  his  life  as  a 
husbandman  led  him  to  see  the  world  in  the  hard  colours 
of  uncorrected  realism.  Only  a  few  enthusiasts  pretend 
to  find  in  his  "Works  and  Days"  the  beauty  of  the 
"  Georgics,"  in  which  Virgil  was  his  avowed  imitator. 
The  Roman  poet  combined  with  a  delicate  temperament 
the  education  of  his  age,  and  tried  to  show  to  his  coun- 
trymen, the  already  weary  masters  of  the  world,  the 
victims  of  an  over-luxurious  civilization,  that  in  farming 
lay  a  potent  charm  and  a  remedial  grace.    But  Hesiod 


BCEOTIA  3" 

lived  in  the  eighth  century  b.  c.  and  farmed  for  his  living. 
To  us,  grown  more  democratic  than  the  later  Greeks  and 
Romans,  his  chief  appeal  is  that  of  the  "mouthpiece* 
of  obscure  handworkers  in  the  earliest  centuries  of 
Greek  history,  the  poet  of  their  daily  labours,  sufferings 
and  wrongs,  the  singer  of  their  doubts  and  infantine 
reflections  on  the  world  in  which  they  had  to  toil.'* 

As  agricultural  life  is  concerned  with  certain  per- 
manent factors  in  human  experience  and  is  also  pro- 
verbially conservative,  Hesiod's  picture  of  it  is  prob- 
ably true,  in  its  broad  outlines,  of  after  centuries  and 
of  many  another  place  than  Boeotia.  Later  Greek 
writers  were  not  attracted  by  the  homely  subject,  and 
the  "Works  and  Days"  is  the  sole  specimen  in  Greece 
of  a  kind  of  literature  which  is  practically  bom  out  of 
the  soil  and  out  of  nature's  varied  processes. 

In  this  didactic  poem  we  are  introduced  to  a  commu- 
nity whose  work  and  pleasures  were  governed  by  the 
seasons.  The  white  blossoms  of  the  spring,  the  swal- 
low lifting  her  wing  at  dawn,  the  song  of  the  cuckoo, 
the  tender  green  of  the  fig  tree,  the  early  rains,  all 
meant  the  planting  and  nursing  of  the  seeds.  The 
summer  heat  that  brought  the  cicada's  shrill  cry 
brought,  too,  a  little  leisure  for  picnicking  in  the  shade 
of  a  rock  by  a  stream,  off  creamy  cake  and  goat's 
milk  and  wine.  But  in  the  cooler  hours  the  corn 
had  to  be  threshed  on  the  stone  floors,  and  the  hay 
stored  in  the  barns.  In  the  autumn  the  falling  leaves 
and  the  crane's  migratory  call  showed  that  wood  must 


312   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

be  cut,  ploughshares  made,  the  proper  ser\^ants  and 
steers  procured,  and  the  grapes  gathered  and  pressed. 
In  the  winter  the  industrious  man  had  to  look  after 
his  household  store,  much  as  he  was  tempted  to  linger 
by  the  forge  and  saunter  in  the  warm  porticoes.  For 
in  January  the  whirlwind  of  the  north  often  swept 
down  from  Thrace,  the  Earth  howled  and  long  and 
loud  the  forests  roared.  The  oaks  and  pines  were  hurled 
from  hilltops.  The  beasts  of  the  wild  wood  crept  low 
to  escape  the  drifting  snow,  the  oxen  and  goats  cowered 
in  their  stalls.  Only  the  young  daughter  in  her  pretty 
chamber  under  her  mother's  roof  was  safe.  The  farmer 
had  to  put  on  thicker  underclothing  and  a  woollen 
coat  and  oxhide  shoes  lined  with  thick  socks,  and  pull 
his  cap  down  over  his  ears  as  he  hurried  home  at  night- 
fall. Thus  intertwined  in  Hesiod's  Boeotian  mind  were 
poetry  and  prudence.  And  prudence  predominated 
in  his  catalogue  of  the  lucky  and  unlucky  days  which 
next  to  the  seasons  regulated  the  farmer's  life.  From 
sheep-shearing  to  marriage  everything  must  have  its 
proper  day.  This  was  true  also  of  seafaring  life,  for 
which  Hesiod  gives  rather  grudging  directions.  Sailors 
and  fishermen,  potters  and  smiths  mingled  in  friendly 
intercourse  with  the  husbandmen.  Beggars  and  va- 
grants came  and  went.  And  news  of  the  distant  world 
and  a  kindling  of  dull  fancy  came  with  the  wandering 
minstrels.  Standards  in  such  a  world  were  simple. 
Men  ate  asphodel  and  mallows  and  had  a  creed  as 
pleasing  and  as  natural :  to  work  hard  and  save  a  little 


BCEOTIA  313 

every  year,  to  be  hospitable  and  neighbourly,  to  be 
good  to  one's  parents  and  faithful  to  one's  wife,  never 
to  abuse  a  trust  and  to  sacrifice  to  the  gods  with  clean 
hands  and  a  pure  heart. 

Hesiod  has  little  to  say  of  holidays,  but  as  Boeotia 
grew  older  celebrations  of  all  kinds  seem  to  have  flour- 
ished conspicuously,  even  for  Greece,  which  took  so 
kindly  to  the  bright  colours,  lively  crowds,  and  stately 
processions  of  feast  days.  Many  of  these,  occurring 
quadrennially,  attracted  delegates  and  visitors  from 
other  states,  even  from  contemptuous  Athens.  Such 
were  the  Musaea,  the  great  national  contests  in  poetry 
and  music  on  Mount  Helicon  in  the  valley  of  the 
Muses;  the  games  and  literary  competitions  at 
Apollo's  sanctuary  on  Mount  Ptoon;  and  the  Eleu- 
theria,  the  Games  of  Freedom,  at  Plataea.  More  local 
festivals,  also,  Hke  the  athletic  and  musical  contests 
at  Thespiae  known  as  the  Games  of  Love,  and  the 
Royal  Games  at  Lebadeia  in  honour  of  King  Zeus, 
often  drew  crowds  of  visitors.  But  many  of  us,  could 
we  have  known  ancient  Boeotia,  would  have  chosen 
homelier  occasions  for  our  visits.  We  would  have 
sought  out  Tanagra  on  the  feast  day  of  Hermes,  the 
Ram-bearer,  when  the  handsomest  boy  of  the  town,  in 
memory  of  a  similar  service  rendered  by  Hermes  at 
the  time  of  a  plague,  bore  a  lamb  on  his  shoulders 
about  the  city  walls.  And  in  the  autumn  at  Plataea 
we  would  have  attended  the  annual  memorial  service 
for  those  who  died  in  the  great  battle.  At  daybreak 


314    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

myrrh  and  garlands  were  carried  to  the  tombs,  young 
boys  chosen  for  their  free  birth  bore  jars  of  oil  and 
precious  ointment  and  of  wine  and  milk,  and  the  chief 
magistrate  put  on  a  purple  robe  and  poured  out  a  liba- 
tion, saying,  "  I  drink  to  those  who  lost  their  lives  for 
the  liberty  of  Greece."  Or  at  the  sanctuary  of  Demeter 
at  Mycalessus  we  would  have  watched  the  people  from 
the  surrounding  farms  lay  at  the  feet  of  her  image  all 
kinds  of  autumn  fruits,  which  they  knew  would  keep 
fresh  the  whole  year  through. 

This  festival  of  Thanksgiving  was  doubtless  of  very 
ancient  origin,  as  was  also  the  spring  festival  of  the 
Little  Daedala,  celebrated  every  few  years  in  many 
Boeotian  communities.  The  peasants  and  townspeople 
poured  into  the  woods  and  chose,  from  certain  signs,  an 
oak  tree  out  of  which  they  made  an  image;  and  this 
image  they  set  up  and  worshipped  to  the  accompani- 
ment of  festal  merriment.  The  custom  originated  in 
Plataea,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  story  believed  by  the 
common  people.  Hera,  in  a  not  unwonted  fit  of  temper, 
had  withdrawn  to  Euboea,  and  Zeus  could  not  persuade 
her  to  come  back.  But  old  Cithaeron,  lord  of  Plataea, 
advised  him  to  play  on  her  jealousy  by  dressing  up  a 
wooden  image  and  telling  her  that  he  was  going  to 
marry  Plataea,  the  wife  of  Asopus.  Hera  flew  back,  and 
in  memory  of  the  divine  reunion  the  "Little  Daedala'* 
was  instituted. 

Every  sixty  years  all  Boeotia,  its  big  and  little  cities, 
its  farmsteads  and  fishing  towns,  united  in  the  Great 


BCEOTIA  315 

Daedala.  The  crowds  gathered  at  Plataea.  Long  pro- 
cessions, representing  each  town,  bore  their  own  wooden 
images  to  the  summit  of  Cithaeron,  seeking  a  narrow 
plateau  where  the  snows  had  melted.  Here  altars  were 
built  and  victims  burned.  And  at  night  the  great  flames 
rose  into  the  sky  and  were  seen  from  afar,  so  that  the 
young  men  in  Attica  and  beyond  the  Gulfs  doubtless 
said  to  each  other,  "Boeotia  is  celebrating  as  our 
fathers  said,"  and  the  old  men  shook  their  heads  and 
remembered  brighter  fires. 

Zeus  and  Hera  have  been  long  forgotten,  nor  are 
the  feet  of  Dionysus  heard  upon  the  mountain,  but 
still  winter  gives  way  to  spring  and  the  heart  of  man 
is  glad.  The  hard-working  people  of  modem  Boeotia 
keep  holiday  when  spring  blooms  anew,  and  Mount 
Cithaeron  gives  them  as  of  old  the  soft  green  of  its  bud- 
ding oak  leaves,  the  vivacious  laughter  of  its  loosened 
waters. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THERMOPYLAE 

"  Die,  hospes,  Spartae  nos  te  hie  vidisse  iaeentes 
Dum  sanetis  patriae  legibus  obsequimur." 

Cicero,  translation  of  a  Greek  Epitaph.* 

THERMOPYLAE  lies  duc  north  from  Delphi, 
less  than  twenty-five  miles  distant  in  an  air 
line,  but  between  them  lie  ''many  o'er- 
shadowing  mountains,"  as  Achilles  might  say,  or,  to 
be  more  exact,  the  great  Parnassus  cluster  and  the 
continuation  of  the  (Eta  range,  the  watershed  between 
the  Boeotian  Cephisus  and  the  Malian  Spercheius. 
Just  where  Doris  and  Phocis  on  the  south  meet  Tra- 
chian  Malis  and  Epicnemidian  Locris  on  the  north 
Mount  Kallidromos  is  set  like  a  boundary  stone.  The 
ridge  that  unites  it  with  Mount  (Eta  proper  is  now 
pierced  by  the  Larissa  railway- tunnel,  opened  in  the 
summer  of  1908,  through  which  the  northern  express 

*  Cieero,  in  this  translation  of  the  famous  epigram  (see  below) 
attributed  to  Simonides,  apparently  follows  a  version  slightly  differ- 
ent from  that  transmitted  by  Herodotus.  A  charming  old  German 
translation  is  preserved  in  a  Heidelberg  manuscript :  — 

"  Sag,  frembder  gast,  dem  Spartenn  land, 
Wir  liegen  fast  hie  inn  dem  sannd, 
Dass  wir  so  schon  inn  dem  gefecht 
Gehalten  hon  satzung  unnd  recht." 


THERMOPYLi^  317 

carries  the  traveller  into  the  gorge  and  along  the  steep 
cliffs  of  the  Asopus,  the  river  that  flowed  down  between 
Xerxes  and  Leonidas.  To  the  east  of  the  river's  outlet 
into  the  Malian  gulf  was  the  narrow  gangway  between 
cliffs  and  water,  called  "Hot- Gates"  from  the  local 
"  Thermai,"  or  hot  springs,  and  the  "  Pylai,"  or  fortified 
gateways. 

It  is  not  unnatural  that  the  story  of  Thermopylae 
should  have  found  in  the  imagination  of  men  a  place 
more  secure  than  have  even  the  victories  at  Marathon, 
Salamis,  and  Plataea.  The  very  tragedy  of  defeat  stands 
out  more  conspicuously  against  the  background  of  the 
moral  victory.  The  physical  surroundings,  too,  are  more 
picturesque.  At  the  narrow  entrance  between  cliffs  and 
sea  individual  daring  emerges,  as  in  the  defence  of  a 
mediaeval  portcullis,  and  in  the  memory  remain  the  de- 
tails of  the  by-path  over  Mount  Kallidromos;  the  leaves 
under  foot  rusthng  in  the  darkness  and  betraying  the 
ascent  of  the  Persians  to  the  Phocian  rear- guard ;  the 
dawn  breaking  over  the  blue  sea  at  the  foot  of  the  cliffs ; 
and  the  Persian  Immortals  descending  swiftly  upon 
the  rear  of  the  few  resolute  men  below.  Then  the  long 
struggle  in  the  narrow  pass  comes  to  an  end  and  Leoni- 
das and  his  men  move  out  into  the  wider  pa^t  before 
the  pass.  The  "strength  of  the  hills"  was  rendered 
futile  by  the  traitor  guide;  the  water,  faithful  ally 
during  the  preceding  days,  would  now  vainly  strive  to 
engulf  the  invaders.  The  Sun,  god  of  both  armies, 
beat  down  indiscriminately  upon  the  Oriental  worship- 


3i8   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

pers  of  his  heavenly  fire  and  on  the  heaps  of  dead 
Greeks.  Somewhere  amongst  them  lay  the  unaffrighted 
soldier  Dieneces,  who  had  welcomed  with  Laconic  hu- 
mour the  sun-obscuring  Persian  arrows  as  a  grateful 
shade  in  the  heat  of  battle. 

It  is  disappointing,  indeed,  that  now  on  the  spot  the 
actual  scene  requires  certain  stage  directions.  The 
modem  coast  line  has  been  pushed  far  out  into  the 
bay  by  earthquakes  and  the  detritus  of  the  streams. 
The  Spercheius  now  flows  through  a  plain  some  two 
miles  wide  between  the  precipices  and  the  sea.  But 
the  configuration  of  the  land  was  still  essentially  un- 
changed when,  under  Brennus  and  his  Gauls,  in  the 
third  century  b.  c,  there  was  another  invasion  hardly 
less  formidable  than  that  of  the  Persians.  Before  the 
Gauls  reached  Delphi  there  was  here  at  Thermopylae 
a  repetition  of  the  more  famous  struggle.  The  coast 
line  still  lay  close  to  the  cliffs.  The  Athenian  fleet  stood 
in  near  enough,  despite  the  rapidly  shoaling  water,  to 
harass  the  flank  of  the  enemy,  while  the  other  Greeks  in 
the  narrow  pass  repeated  the  stubborn  resistance  of  the 
Spartans  and  their  allies  just  two  hundred  years  before. 
Other  details,  too,  were  duplicated.  The  Gauls,  un- 
able to  force  the  pass,  resorted,  as  had  the  Persians, 
to  the  mountain  path.  Again  it  was  the  Phocians 
who  strove  to  stop  them,  but  the  invaders,  pushing  by, 
descended  on  the  rear  of  the  Greeks,  who  were  saved 
from  the  fate  of  Leonidas  only  by  the  presence  of  the 
Athenian  fleet. 


THERMOPYL^  319 

The  exact  topography  of  Thermopylae  is  still  a  matter 
of  controversy,  and  a  liberal  discount  has  long  since 
been  made  from  the  fabulous  total,  given  by  Herodotus, 
of  Xerxes's  host.  Just  who  and  how  many  of  the  allies 
remained  and  died  after  Leonidas  sent  the  others  away 
is  also  uncertain.  Among  those  remaining  with  the 
Spartans  of  their  own  free  will  Pausanias  mentions 
only  the  seven  hundred  Thespians  and  the  eighty  men 
from  Mycenae.  The  inscription  written  avowedly  for 
all  the  Peloponnesian  soldiers  exaggerates  the  number 
of  the  Persians  and  fails  to  state  definitely  that  all  of 
the  four  thousand  fought  to  the  finish: — 

Here  on  a  time  four  thousand  of  men  from  the  Peloponnesus, 
Meeting  three  millions  of  men,  struggled  in  battle  and  fought. 

But  all  restrictions,  made  in  the  interest  of  historic 
truth,  only  serve  to  eliminate  the  miraculous  element. 
They  leave  undisturbed  the  picture  of  a  heroism 
comHned  with  military  skill  which,  if  properly  supple- 
mented, might  well  have  kept  Xerxes  shut  out  from 
lower  Greece  indefinitely,  or  as  long  as  the  Greek  fleet, 
aided  by  the  elements,  could  have  restrained  him  from 
moving  south  by  the  sea. 

The  allies  of  Sparta,  both  those  who  fell  in  the  four 
days  before  the  betrayal  of  the  pathway  and  those  who 
fell  at  the  end,  were  duly  praised,  but  Leonidas  and  his 
three  hundred  have  always  received,  and  justly,  the 
lion's  share  of  honour.  They  represented  the  Lacedae- 
monians at  their  best.    The  moral  prestige  that  the 


320   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Spartans  had  temporarily  forfeited  by  their  absence 
from  Marathon  was  now  regained,  to  be  still  further 
emphasized  at  Plataea.  Over  the  Spartans  buried  at 
Thermopylae  was  inscribed :  — 

Stranger,  go  unto  Sparta,  aye  go  and  announce  to  our  people 
Here  we  their  orders  obeyed,  here  we  are  lying  in  death. 

In  Lacedaemon  also  the  names  of  the  three  hundred 
were  inscribed  upon  a  pillar,  still  existing  in  the  time  of 
Pausanias.  On  the  hill  at  Thermopylae,  where  the 
Spartans  made  their  last  stand,  was  set  up  a  marble  lion 
to  honour  the  name  of  Leonidas.  In  an  epigram,  said 
to  have  been  written  for  the  monument  by  Simonides, 
the  lion  is  represented  as  saying  to  the  passers-by:  — 

I  am  the  strongest  of  beasts  of  the  wild,  but  the  strongest  of  mortals 
He  it  is  over  whose  tomb  I  as  a  sentinel  stand. 

Were  he  not  Leo  in  courage,  as  even  my  name  he  possesses. 
Never  had  I  set  foot  here  on  the  marble  above. 

From  the  longer  "encomium"  by  Simonides  on' the 
dead  at  Thermopylae  is  handed  down  a  fragment 
worthily  translated  by  Sterling: — 

"  Of  those  who  at  Thermopylae  were  slain, 
Glorious  the  doom  and  beautiful  the  lot; 
Their  tomb  an  altar;  men  from  tears  refrain 

To  honour  them  and  praise  but  mourn  them  not. 
Such  sepulchre  nor  drear  decay 

Nor  all-destroying  time  shall  waste;  this  right  have  they. 
Within  their  graves  the  home-bred  glory 
Of  Greece  was  laid:  this  witness  gives 
Leonidas  the  Spartan  in  whose  story 
A  wreath  of  famous  virtue  ever  lives." 


THERMOPYLi^  321 

In  addition  to  Leonidas  there  was  also  singled  out 
for  individual  honour  and  remembrance  the  seer  Megis- 
tias  of  Acarnania,  who  claimed  descent,  proud  as  that 
of  the  Levitical  priesthood,  from  the  Homeric  seer 
Melampus.  From  sacrifices  made  before  sunrise  on 
that  last  day,  Megistias  gave  out  in  advance  the  cer- 
tainty of  their  impending  doom.  Presently  deserters 
and  scouts  came  in  saying  that  the  Persians  had  forced 
the  heights.  Leonidas,  recognizing  that  when  they  were 
attacked  in  the  rear  also  death  was  a  foregone  conclu- 
sion, commanded  Megistias  and  the  greater  part  of  the 
allies  to  withdraw  while  there  was  still  time.  But  the 
seer,  refusing  to  depart,  remained  to  die  with  Leoni- 
das and  set  the  seal  of  religious  sanction  on  the  struggle 
for  liberty,  as  the  modern  priesthood  of  Greece,  in  the 
war  with  the  Turks,  by  their  words  and  blood  inspired 
and  sanctioned  the  patriotism  of  the  people. 

The  epitaph  for  Megistias.  was  written  by  Simonides, 
not  by  public  commission  as  poet  laureate,  but,  as 
Herodotus  states,  by  reason  of  guest-friendship.  Even 
this  special  inscription,  however,  on  the  tomb  of  the 
Acarnanian  seer,  closes  with  a  complimentary  reference 
to  Sparta.  It  was  Sparta's  day. 

Famous  Megistias  here  is  recorded  as  one  whom  the  Persians, 
Crossing  Spercheius's  stream,  slew  on  a  day  that  is  gone. 

He  was  the  seer,  who,  though  knowing  as  certain  the  Fates  that  were 
on  them, 
Could  not  endure  to  desert  leaders  of  Sparta  in  war. 

A  dramatic  story  is  selected  by  Herodotus  to  embel- 
lish his  account  of  the  battle.   Two  Spartan  soldiers, 


322   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Eurytus  and  Aristodemus,  lay  at  the  headquarters  at 
Alpeni,  suffering  with  severe  ophthalmia.  When  the 
news  came  in  of  the  final  crisis,  Eurytus,  putting  on 
his  armour  with  the  help  of  his  helot  squire,  was  led 
on  his  blind  way  into  the  thick  of  the  battle  and  fell 
fighting  with  the  rest,  while  the  helot  made  good  his 
escape.  Aristodemus,  as  might  indeed  seem  natural 
in  the  case  of  a  man  thus  incapacitated  for  service, 
remained  behind  and  returned  home.  But  his  fellow 
citizens  at  Sparta,  incensed  at  the  contrast  between  the 
two,  refused  him  light  to  kindle  fire  and  nicknamed  him 
the  "Trembler."  Nor  did  any  subsequent  bravery 
wipe  out  his  disgrace.  Even  when,  in  the  closing  scene 
of  the  great  drama  at  Plataea,  he  surpassed  all  others 
in  the  reckless  daring  with  which  he  fought  and  died, 
he  was  still  excluded  from  his  country's  roll  of  honour. 
Thus  imperative  did  it  seem  that  Spartan  courage  and 
love  of  liberty  should  be  proclaimed  to  all  as  the  rule 
that  knew  no  exception. 


CHAPTER  XVI 


ARGOLIS 


Few  for  our  eyes  are  the  homes  of  the  heroes, 

Lowly  these  few,  they  scarce  lift  from  the  plain; 
So  once  I  marked  thee,  O  luckless  Mycenae, 

Then,  as  I  passed  the^  a  desert's  domain. 
Never  goat-pasture  more  lonely,  thou  'rt  merely 

Something  they  point  at,  while  driving  a-fold. 
Said  an  old  herd  to  me:  'Here  stood  the  city 

Built  by  Cyclopes,  the  city  of  gold.' 

Alpheus  of  Mitylene,  Greek  Anthology. 

IN  the  Argolid  it  seems  reasonable  to  turn  aside  from 
history,  in  its  narrower  definition,  to  recall  the  tales 
of  heroes  and  the  "  grandeur  of  the  dooms  imagined 
for  the  mighty  dead.''  The  turbulent  and  uneven 
course  of  events  in  which  Argolis  of  historic  times  ap- 
pears now  as  an  ally,  now  as  an  enemy  of  other  power- 
ful states,  is  of  less  moment  than  the  legends  handed 
down  and  crystallized  in  great  literature.  Even  if  the 
sagas  which  may  have  formed  the  nucleus  of  the  Iliad 
sprang  from  the  older  Thessalian  "Argos,"  the  Ho- 
meric poems,  as  known  to  the  classic  Greeks  and  to  us, 
concern  themselves  with  the  mighty  fortresses  of  the 
Argolid.  The  Attic  drama  reenforced  the  epic  tradi- 
tion, and  the  interchanging  use  in  Homer  of  Achagans, 
Danai,  and  Argives  to  designate  the  Greeks,  suggests 


324   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

the  elements  which  gave  the  later  poets  opportunity  for 
varied  interpretation. 

Argolis  was  the  outpost  of  the  Peloponnesus,  and 
even  of  the  whole  Greek  mainland,  for  the  prehistoric 
invaders  and  traders  from  Crete,  the  southern  ^gean 
or  Phoenicia.  The  rugged  eastern  peninsula  of  Laconia, 
indeed,  extends  southward  nearly  a  whole  degree  of 
latitude  further  than  Argolis,  but  the  dangerous  pro- 
montory, Malea,  did  not  so  often  entice  mariners  to 
double  it  as  it  served  for  a' beacon  to  direct  their  course 
northward  into  the  deep  shelter  of  the  beautiful  Gulf 
of  Argos.  It  is  easy  to  understand  how  naturally  the 
early  captains  of  commerce  or  conquest  would  be 
guided  up  the  long  coast  until  they  beached  their  boats 
under  the  impregnable  rock  of  Nauplia  and  the  low 
hill  of  Tiryns  levelled,  as  it  seemed,  by  the  footprint 
of  some  god  at  whose  bidding  the  "Cyclopes"  reared 
its  prehistoric  and  superhuman  walls. 

But  the  southward- facing  gulf  was  not  the  only  ap- 
proach to  Argolis.  The  earth's  crust,  pushed  up  into 
a  ridged  peninsula  between  the  Saronic  and  Argolic 
gulfs,  falls  away  also  at  the  north  to  the  Corinthian  Gulf 
and  the  Isthmus.  From  this  direction  migrating  bands 
of  Achaeans  came  overland  to  mingle  with  the  more 
numerous  "Pelasgians"  and  to  dominate  them  by  their 
intellectual  power  and  by  their  rich  and  conquering 
Greek  speech.  When,  after  the  lapse  of  long  years, 
Achaean  imagination,  combined  with  the  highly  devel- 
oped *'Pelasgian"   skill  in  building,   had  reared  or 


A  GALLERY  OF  THE  ACROPOLIS  OF  TIRYNS 


ARGOLIS  325 

developed  a  fortress  on  the  acropolis  of  Mycenae,  robber 
barons  could  control  the  mountain  gateway.  And  with 
the  probably  earlier  Larisa,  the  acropolis  of  Argos,  and 
with  the  fortresses  of  Tiryns  and  of  Midea,  they  could 
take  their  toll  of  all  who  would  enter  the  Argive  plain 
from  the  north  or  the  south.  The  masters  of  these 
palace  castles,  as  their  wealth  and  their  wants  increased, 
could  afford  to  be  hospitable  to  Cretan  art  or  to  the  con- 
tributions from  the  JEgesin  or  Asia.  They  may,  per- 
haps, as  time  went  on,  have  visualized  the  spoken  word 
in  the  new  characters  of  the  alphabet,  whatever  its  pro- 
venance, whether  brought  over  seas  to  Nauplia  by  some 
Palamedes,  who  might  pose  as  its  inventor,  or  by  the 
Phoenician  traders,  middlemen  between  the  Greeks  and 
the  men  of  Crete  and  the  ^gean  who,  centuries  before, 
had  developed  writing  from  their  picture  script. 

The  blended  prehistoric  civilization,  with  its  epochs 
checked  off  in  centuries  or  millennia,  and,  thanks  to 
the  archaeologists,  to-day  rapidly  emerging  through- 
out the  Greek  world  in  Attica,  Boeotia,  Asia  Minor,  the 
islands  and  the  Peloponnesus,  has  received  not  unnatu- 
rally, if . prematurely,  the  general  name  "Mycenaean" 
from  the  great  royal  tombs  and  smaller  graves  and  the 
strong  walls  of  Mycenae  and  from  the  rich  and  amazing 
treasure  recovered  from  the  graves  excavated  within 
the  Gateway  of  the  Lions.  Accumulating  evidence  has 
indicated  the  insufficiency  of  the  term  to  include  both 
the  art  and  the  architecture.  Successive  periods  and 
various  origins  must  yet  be  disentangled.  But  Mycenae 


326   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

and  Tiryns,  as  being  the  most  impressive  in  their 
entirety,  continue  to  represent  this  prehistoric  civiliza- 
tion to  the  majority  of  visitors,  and  the  term  "  Myce- 
naean" may  serve  until  some  happier  names  are  sug- 
gested to  distinguish  at  once  between  the  home-bred 
and  the  imported. 

On  the  borderland  between  mere  shadowy  tradition 
and  an  approximately  exact  chronology  two  events 
seemed  to  the  Greeks  themselves  of  preeminent  im- 
portance and  were  referred  by  them  to  the  twelfth 
century  b.  c.  —  the  Fall  of  Troy,  and  the  Return  of  the 
Heracleidae,  or  the  Dorian  conquest,  as  we  should  now 
describe  this  movement.  Although  Thucydides  states 
that  "in  the  eightieth  year  after  the  Trojan  War  the 
Dorians,  led  by  the  Heracleidae,  conquered  the  Pelo- 
ponnesus, "  it  may  be  found  necessary  to  assume  a 
much  longer  interval,  especially  if  we  allow  for  a  series 
of  Dorian  conquests. 

The  Dorians  were  one  of  the  Greek  clans  pushed 
down  from  further  north  into  central  Greece  in  pre- 
historic times.  They  have  left,  as  the  memorial  of  this 
period,  their  name  attached  to  little  Doris  wedged  in 
between  Parnassus  and  Mount  (Eta.  When  they  were 
impelled  to  move  still  further  south,  whether  by  external 
pressure  or  the  desire  to  send  out  colonies,  the  Achaeans 
already  held  the  land  approach  to  the  Peloponnesus 
and  also  the  littoral  of  Achaea  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
Corinthian  Gulf.  They  were  thus  forced  to  take  to  the 
sea,  and  the  Dorian  settlements  in  Crete,  Thera,  Melos, 


ARGOLIS  327 

and  Asia  Minor  seem  to  have  been  followed  by  Dorian 
invasions  of  the  Peloponnesus  from  the  south  and  east, 
especially  in  Laconia  and  Argolis.  In  Laconia  the  in- 
vaders established  themselves  as  conquerors  and  re- 
tained their  own  character  almost  unchanged,  while  in 
Argolis  they  amalgamated  with  the  people  already 
in  possession.  In  readjusting  pedigrees  it  was  more 
agreeable  to  native  pride  to  assume  that  these  invaders 
were  themselves  of  good  old  Peloponnesian  stock,  rather 
than  foreign  Dorians,  and  incidentally  to  localize  the 
spreading  fame  of  Heracles.  Both  of  these  objects  were 
provided  for  in  Argolis  when  Heracles  proved  to  be  of 
the  Perseid  line,  the  original  and  most  distinguished 
Argive  dynasty.  Under  his  grandchildren  the  invaders 
merely  came  back  to  their  own.  Thus  the  Dorian  in- 
vasions came  to  be  described  by  the  senseless  and  con- 
fusing name  of  the  Return  of  the  Heracleidae.  With  this 
event  is  perhaps  to  be  associated  the  sudden  destruc- 
tion of  Mycenae  and  Tiryns  by  fire  and  the  reinstate- 
ment of  Argos  and  the  Larisa  citadel  as  supreme. 

By  way  of  acquiring  the  chief  poet  as  well  as  the  chief 
hero  of  Greece,  Argos  claimed,  with  other  cities,  to  be 
the  birthplace  of  Homer  —  an  echo,  doubtless,  of  the 
dimly  remembered  sagas  of  Achaean  Argos  in  Thessaly. 
In  reality,  Argolis,  like  other  Dorian  cantons,  contrib- 
uted more  subject  matter  for  poets  than  poetry  itself. 
Yet  it  was  not  wholly  parasitical.  It  partially  balanced 
the  Dorian  debt  by  sending  to  Athens  two  poet-musi- 


328   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

cians  whose  activity  cannot  be  justly  appraised  from 
the  meagre  fragments  that  have  come  down  to  us.  The 
Dorian  contributions  to  music  must  be  kept  in  mind. 
The  Argives,  we  are  told,  furnished  many  of  the  famous 
musicians  of  Greece. 

From  Hermione  on  the  southern  shore  of  the  peninsula 
came  Lasus,  who,  as  a  theoretical  and  practical  musi- 
cian, did  much  to  develop  the  dithyramb.  He  was  the 
teacher  of  Pindar  and,  under  the  cultivated  tyrant  Hip- 
parchus,  was  a  rival  of  Simonides  in  Athens.  The  other 
poet,  Pratinas,  came  from  Phlius,  geographically  within 
the  northwestern  comer  of  Argolis,  although  the  in- 
dependent Phliasians  long  maintained  their  autonomy. 
The  city  lay  in  green  meadowlands  high  among  the 
mountains  on  the  grassy  banks  of  the  Sicyonian  Asopus 
which,  according  to  local  belief,  was  generated  by  the 
Carian  Meander  coming  under  the  sea  to  link  the  two 
sides  of  the  ^Egean  together,  as  the  Alpheus,  on  the 
other  side,  united  Sicily  to  the  mother  land.  Although 
Pratinas  was  inevitably  drawn  by  the  lure  of  the  intel- 
lectual to  live  at  Athens,  he  stands  out  as  a  Dorian 
poet.  He  is  known  as  the  first  writer  of  the  satyr 
dramas,  one  of  which  it  was  for  a  while  the  custom  to 
add  to  the  trilogy  of  tragedies,  and  he  competed  even 
with  iEschylus. 

The  literature  of  Ionian  Athens  lacked  one  element 
which  developed  among  the  iEolians  and  Dorians. 
The  more  independent  life  of  Dorian  women  called 
forth  two   poetesses  in   the   Peloponnesus.     One  of 


ARGOLIS  329 

these  lived  at  Sicyon.  This  city,  lying  on  the  Asopus, 
which  comes  tumbling  down  through  the  deep  ravine 
from  Phlius,  early  became  Dorian.  Once  included  in 
the  widespread  kingdom  of  the  Agamemnon  of  tradi- 
tion, it  was  now  independent,  now  dependent  on  Argos 
or  on  Sparta.  With  the  mountains  of  the  Peloponnesus 
around  it  and  the  Corinthian  Gulf  and  Parnassus  in 
front,  it  is  beautiful  for  situation.  Its  rich  treasure- 
houses  were  among  the  notable  sights  at  Delphi  and 
Olympia,  and  it  was  famous  for  its  schools  of  painting 
and  of  sculpture.  Here  Praxilla,  the  Dorian  poetess 
par  excellence,  lived  in  the  fifth  century  b.  C.  The  fame 
of  her  dithyrambs,  a  few  fragments  of  which  have 
reached  us,  survived  her,  and  she  was  deemed  worthy 
of  a  bronze  statue  by  Lysippus,  a  later  compatriot. 

In  aristocratic  Argos  itself  another  woman,  Telesilla, 
was  honoured  both  as  a  writer  of  choral  hymns  for 
maidens  and  as  a  heroine  in  war.  Pausanias  adds  to  the 
Herodotean  account  of  the  Argive  men  massacred  by 
the  Spartans  in  Hera's  grove  the  story  of  how  Telesilla 
manned  the  walls  with  old  men,  boys,  and  slaves,  and 
then  drew  up  the  Argive  women  for  actual  conflict  with 
the  Spartans  and  repulsed  them,  partly  by  stout  fight- 
ing, partly  by  the  shame  inspired  in  them  by  the  thought 
of  contending  with  women.  Pausanias  saw,  further- 
more, a  carved  relief  representing  the  warrior  poetess, 
her  scrolls  scattered  at  her  feet  as  she  gazes  at  a  helmet 
which  she  is  about  to  put  on.  . 

Kydias,  also  from  Hermione  the  home  of  Lasus, 


330   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

wrote,  in  the  first  half  of  the  fifth  century,  love  songs 
highly  esteemed  by  Plato. 

The  Argolid  contains  more  than  a  dozen  places  prom- 
inent in  Greek  literature  and  in  history.  Among  the 
northern  mountains  were  Phlius,  Cleonse,  and  Nemea; 
overlooking  or  on  the  Argive  Gulf  were  Mycenae, 
the  Heraeum,  Argos  and  the  Larisa  acropolis,  Midea, 
Tiryns,  Nauplia,  and  Lema;  on  the  eastern  coast  of 
Akte,  the  old  name  for  the  promontory  that  with  other 
parts  merged  its  name  in  that  of  Argos,  were  Epidaurus, 
Troezen,  and  Calauria,  with  Hermione  on  the  south 
coast;  and  on  the  west  side  of  the  gulf  was  the  narrow 
strip  of  land,  Cynuria,  bone  of  contention  between 
Sparta  and  the  Wolf  of  Argos.  Of  all  these  places  the 
famous  group  on  the  Argive  Gulf,  together  with  Epi- 
daurus, is  most  easily  accessible  from  Athens,  and  trav- 
ellef s  who  cannot  go  farther  afield  may  gain  from  this 
brief  excursion  in  the  Argolid  an  adequate  impres- 
sion both  of  its  prehistoric  interest  and  of  its  natural 
beauties. 

Herodotus,  in  leading  up  to  his  account  of  the  Per- 
sian War,  selects  as  the  origin  of  the  rivalry  between  the 
Orient  and  Greece  the  rape  by  Phoenicians  of  lo, 
daughter  of  Inachus,  the  personified  Argive  river.  This 
was  doubtless  a  typical  scene  on  the  shores  of  the  Medi- 
terranean. The  seamen  landed  and  "  undid  their  corded 
bales;"  the  native  women  crowded  about  the  bargain 
counter  at  the  vessel's  stern;  it  was  easy  for  the  sailors 


ARGOLIS  331 

to  seize  the  handsomest  and,  launching  their  vessel, 
to  bear  them  away.  The  Phoenicians,  however,  were 
merely  an  episode,  and  the  early  ''Outlanders"  came 
into  the  Argolid  over  the  northern  mountains. 

If  one  were  entering  Argolis  neither  by  the  modem 
railway  nor  in  company  with  one  of  these  instalments 
of  prehistoric  Achaeans  that  descended  from  the  north, 
but  were  faring  along  the  good  highroad  from  Corinth 
in  the  days  of  Mycenae's  glory,  he  would  follow  up  the 
Longopotamo  River,  which  flows  down  west  of  Acro- 
corinth  into  the  Corinthian  Gulf.  Before  crossing  the 
watershed  that  slopes  to  the  Argolic  plain  he  would 
have  come  to  Homer's  "well-built"  Cleonae  in  a  semi- 
circle of  wooded  mountains.  Here  the  ancient  roads 
part,  one  going  east  of  Mount  Treton  more  directly  to 
Mycenae,  the  other  making  a  detour  to  the  west  to  the 
Argive  plain  and  then  to  Mycenae,  stationed  like  a  huge 
spider  at  the  centre  of  its  web.  When  Lucian's  Charon, 
off  on  a  day's  furlough  from  the  Ferry,  asks  Hermes  to 
point  out  the  famous  cities  of  antiquity,  the  latter  shows 
him  Babylon  and  then  adds :  "  But  Mycenae  and  Cleonae 
I  am  ashamed  to  point  out  to  you,  and  Ilium  above 
all.  For  when  you  go  down  home  again  you  '11  certainly 
be  throtding  Homer  for  his  big  boasts.  Long  ago,  to  be 
sure,  they  were  prosperous,  but  now  they  are  dead  and 
gone.  For  cities.  Ferryman,  die  out  just  Hke  people, 
and,  queerest  of  all,  whole  rivers.  For  instance,  there's 
not  so  much  as  a  ditch  left  of  the  Inachus  in  Argos 
now-a-days."    Lucian  forgets  his  quasi  sixth  century 


332   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

perspective  in  this  pessimistic  outlook  and  descends  to 
things  as  they  were  in  his  own  time,  when  his  contem- 
porary Paiisanias  explained  the  "summer-dried"  con- 
dition of  the  Inachus  as  due  to  Poseidon's  anger  be- 
cause Hera  had  been  given  the  preference  to  himself 
in  the  Argive  land.  But  not  even  the  Lynceus  vision, 
temporarily  put  at  the  disposal  of  Charon  by  an 
Homeric  incantation,  could  have  been  expected  to 
reveal,  beneath  the  oblivious  Argive  soil  of  the  second 
century  of  our  era,  the  rich  treasures  of  Mycenae,  to 
which  the  X-rays  of  the  archaeologists  have  now  pene- 
trated. 

Before  descending  along  the  bed  of  the  northern 
tributary  of  the  Inachus  into  the  plain  we  turn  aside 
to  the  precinct  of  Nemea.  This  lies  in  a  valley  of  its 
own  between  those  of  Phlius  and  Cleonae  and,  like 
them,  on  a  stream,  the  Nemea,  which  also  flows  down 
to  the  Corinthian  Gulf.  The  deep  grass,  fed  by  the 
overflowing  waters,  gave  the  name  Nemea,  "pasture- 
land."  The  biennial  Nemean  games,  celebrated  on  the 
high  watershed  at  this  entrance  to  the  peninsula,  were 
especially  pan-Peloponnesian.  They  were  instituted, 
according  to  a  charming  story,  by  Adrastus  and  the 
rest  of  the  "Seven"  on  their  way  to  Thebes,  as  an 
atonement  for  the  death  of  the  child  Opheltes,  carelessly 
left  by  his  nurse  on  a  bed  of  wild  parsley  (or  celery)  and 
slain  by  a  dragon  while  she  fetched  water  for  the  war- 
riors. The  solemn  funereal  origin  of  the  games  was 
kept  before  the  mind  by  the  dun-colored  raiment  worn 


ARGOLIS  333 

by  the  umpires  and  emphasized  by  the  cypress  grove 
which  in  antiquity  surrounded  the  temple.  Pindar 
seems  to  reflect  this  feeHng  when  he  refers  to  the  "  sol- 
emn plains"  in  connection  with  Adrastus.  Elsewhere 
he  speaks  of  the  ''lovely  contests  of  Nemea."  Where 
the  little  Opheltes  died  on  his  bed  of  wild  parsley  and 
the  Argive  champions  passed  by  to  Thebes  are  the 
lonely  ruins  of  the  Temple  of  Zeus.  Three  slender  col- 
umns still  stand  to  watch  over  their  fallen  companions, 
stretched  upon  the  ground  by  the  Earthshaker  whose 
envy  has  shaken  down  so  many  temples  of  rivals  while, 
by  the  cunning  of  Athena  in  sharing  with  him  her  pre- 
cinct, he  has  left  the  great  rock  in  Athens  unmoved. 
Zeus,  the  virile  god  of  the  Achaeans,  is  lord  and  master 
at  Nemea,  while  Hera  presides  in  the  Argive  plain  as 
she  did  originally  at  Olympia. 

The  cave  of  the  Nemean  lion  slain  by  Heracles  at  the 
bidding  of  Eurystheus,  king  of  Mycenae  or  Tiryns,  can- 
not be  identified  with  certainty.  Indeed,  the  king  of 
beasts  himself,  so  far  as  Argolis  is  concerned,  has  been 
now  confined  by  the  excavators  within  the  narrow 
limits  of  a  Phrygian  gem.  Heracles,  in  his  search  for 
rare  fauna,  flora,  and  other  exhibits,  completed  six  of 
his  twelve  labours  in  the  Peloponnesus,  two  of  them 
within  the  borders  of  Argolis,  before  he  was  compelled 
to  go  abroad  for  the  fruit  of  the  Hesperides  or  the  three- 
headed  hound  of  Hades.  He  had  already  killed  a  lion 
on  Mount  Cithaeron  and  assumed  its  skin  as  his  con- 
ventional uniform,  and  when  the  spoils  of  the  Nemean 


334    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

lion  were  delivered  at  Mycenae  the  king  might  well,  it 
may  be  thought,  have  deemed  it  suitable  to  commemo- 
rate by  a  "  totem"  on  the  Gate  of  the  Acropolis  the  sub- 
jugation of  this  original  autochthon  of  Mount  Treton, 
which  dominated  the  two  highways  leading  to  the  for- 
tress. 

In  the  Homeric  poems  it  is  Mycenae,  "rich  in  gold," 
and ;"  well- walled "  Tiryns  that  are  predominant  in 
Argolis.  The  legendary  kingdom  of  the  Atreidae  ex- 
tended over  a  large  part  of  the  Peloponnesus,  and  it 
was  pleasing  to  Argive  pride  to  reserve  Mycenae  as 
headquarters  for  Agamemnon,  king  of  men,  and  to 
parcel  off  Lacedaemon  to  Menelaus  when  he  was  not 
represented  as  also  living  in  Argolis.  Mycenae  com- 
manded the  mountain  roads  to  the  Corinthian  Gulf 
and  the  Isthmus,  and  a  prehistoric  network  of  road- 
beds that  focus  at  Mycenae  lifts  out  of  the  realm  of 
mere  legend  the  controlling  influence  of  the  mighty 
fortress  over  the  territory  to  the  northward.  To  the 
south  of  the  mountains  it  was  connected  with  Tiryns  and 
Argos  in  a  varying  sequence  of  leagues  and  rivalries. 

Mycenae  is  now  as  familiar  to  the  modern  world  as 
the  Acropolis  of  Athens.  Its  resurrection  within  our 
own  times  has  called  forth  manifold  accounts  and 
pictures  of  the  "beehive  tombs,"  the  Cyclopean  walls, 
the  Gate  of  the  Lions  (never,  indeed,  wholly  buried),  the 
circle  of  shaft  graves  on  the  acropolis  and  the  treasure 
found  within  them. 


ARGOLIS  335 

The  three  great  dramatists  all  dealt  with  scenes  from 
the  family  history  of  the  Atreidae  or  Pelopidae,  the  illus- 
trious but  blood-stained  dynasty  that  for  a  few  genera- 
tions only  (if  we  allow  the  Heracleidae  their  pedigree) 
broke  in  upon  the  continuity  of  the  Perseid  line,  de- 
scended through  Danaus  from  Inachus.  When  Eurys- 
theus  was  slain,  as  Thucydides  records,  by  the  Hera- 
cleidae in  Attica,  the  kingdom  passed  to  his  mother's 
half-brother  Atreus,  the  son  of  Pelops.  Agamemnon, 
his  son,  or  his  grandson,  is  described  by  the  historian 
as  "the  greatest  naval  potentate  of  his  time,"  and  he 
cites  the  Iliad  which  speaks  of  him  as  "lording  it 
over  many  ships  and  over  all  Argos,"  that  is,  over  all 
the  Argolid  and  adjacent  Peloponnesus. 

Although  iEschylus,  by  reason  of  a  contemporary 
rapprochement  between  the  Athenians  and  the  Argives, 
explicitly  lays  the  scene  of  his  "Agamemnon"  at  Argos, 
the  traditional  association  with  Mycenae,  handed  down 
from  Homer,  has  usually  prevailed.  Sophocles  re- 
turned to  it,  and  in  his  "  Electra"  assumes  Mycenae  as 
the  home  of  the  royal  pair,  while  Euripides,  in  his  "  Elec- 
tra," loosely  refers  to  both  cities,  although  in  other 
plays  Mycenae  is  uppermost  in  his  mind.  Thus  Iphi- 
geneia  at  Aulis,  about  to  be  sacrificed,  exclaims :  — 

O  mother  mine,  Pelasgian  land, 
O  virgin's  home,  Mycenae! 

And  amongst  the  Taurians,  overjoyed  at  her  reunion 
with  her  brother,  her  thoughts  likewise  revert  to 
Mycenae :  — 


33^       GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

O  home  and  hearth-stone  mine, 

Built  by  Cyclopic  hand, 

Mycenae,  fatherland, 
Our  love  is  thine ! 

Pausanias  speaks  of  Agamemnon  and  others  of  the 
family  as  buried  within  the  walls  of  Mycenae,  and  places 
the  tombs  of  Clytemnestra  and  her  paramour  without. 
The  various  attempts  to  identify  with  literary  tradition 
the  beehive  tombs  below  or  the  shaft  graves  discovered 
by  Schliemann  on  the  acropolis  above  involve  varying 
degrees  of  improbability  or  of  contradiction,  and  from 
these  ingenious  attempts  to  reconcile  facts  it  is  a  relief 
to  turn  to  the  realities  of  pure  fiction. 

The  "Agamemnon"  of  ^Eschylus,  the  greatest  of 
extant  Greek  dramas,  opens  with  a  soldier  posted  on 
the  palace  roof  at  Argos  continuing  the  ten  years'  watch 
for  the  beacon  signal*  that  is  to  flash  across  the  ^gean 
the  news  of  the  capture  of  Troy,  in  order  that  the  guilty 
Clytemnestra  may  not  be  taken  unawares.  Presently 
the  beacon  flashes  out  on  Mount  Arachneum,  seen,  as 
the  watcher  looks  eastward  across  the  plain,  between 
the  Heraeum  and  Tiryns.  The  long  chorals  contain  the 
kernel  of  the  poet's  thought.  The  Argive  elders  enter 
chanting  their  anapaests :  — 

Now  this  year  is  the  tenth  since  'gainst  Priam  of  Troy, 

As  antagonist  great, 

Menelaus  the  lord,  Agamemnon  besides 

Holding  power  two-throned  and  two-sceptred  from  Zeus, 

Mighty  yoke-pair,  two  sons  they  of  Atreus  their  sire, 

*  See  extract  from  Agamemnon  in  chapter  i,  p.  ii. 


ARGOLIS  337 

Sped  forth  from  this  land  in  a  thousand  of  ships 
Of  our  Argives  a  host 

As  a  warrior  band  bringing  succour. 

The  old  men  even  in  the  hour  of  victory  are  filled  with 
strange  foreboding  of  coming  ill  and  with  fear  of  a  still 
unadjusted  Nemesis.  A  curse  is  inbred  in  the  royal 
house.  "The  fearsome  wrath,  recurrent,  house-haunt- 
ing, guileful,  unforgetting,  exacting  vengeance  for  the 
children"  more  than  hints  at  the  grim  story  of  Thyestes 
fed  by  Atreus  on  the  flesh  of  his  children.  Iphigeneia's 
sacrifice  at  Aulis  by  Agamemnon*  is  skilfully  introduced 
to  complicate  the  ethical  situation  by  giving  Clytem- 
nestra  a  plausible  justification  for  her  unfaithfulness 
and  for  the  secret  plottings  of  which  the  chorus  is  not 
unaware. 

Clytemnestra,  intoxicated  with  the  thought  that 
Agamemnon  is  about  to  fall  into  her  snare,  tells  the 
chorus  how  the  beacons,  her  "racers  with  the  torch," 
have  brought  the  news,  and  then  breaks  forth  with 
a  recital,  swift  and  vivid,  reminding  them  how,  even 
while  she  speaks,  the  Argive  warriors  are  stalking  tri- 
umphant through  the  streets  of  Troy :  — 

Troy  the  Achaeans  have  and  hold  this  very  day! 
Methinks  I  hear  commingling  outcries  in  the  town. 

The  captive  Trojan  women  "from  throats  no  longer 
free"  bewail  their  dead,  while  the  Argives  plunder  as 
they  shout  or  seat  themselves  at  an  impromptu  break- 
fast: — 

*  See  extract  from  Agamemnon,  chapter  xiv,  p.  308. 


338   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

In  captured  Trojan  homes  they  make  their  dwelling  now, 
Set  free  from  roofless  bivouac  in  frost  and  dew. 
How  they,  the  happy  men,  will  sleep  the  livelong  night 
Unpicketed ! 

Agamemnon  enters  in  his  chariot,  with  Cassandra,  the 
captive  princess  of  Troy,  in  his  retinue,  driving  up  from 
Nauplia.  He  addresses  Argos  and  the  gods.  He  boasts 
of  the  capture  of  Ilium.  The  interval  necessary  for  the 
^gean  voyage  is  minimized  —  Troy's  ruins  still  smoul- 
der sulkily :  — 

From  smoke  still  rising  even  now  conspicuous 

Is  seen  the  captured  city;  blasts  of  ruin  live; 

From  out  the  smould'ring  ashes  there  keep  jetting  forth 

Fat  puffs  of  plunder! 

From  the  ruined  wealth  of  Troy  the  thought  is 
turned  to  the  traditional  costly  splendour  of  the  Argive 
palaces.  Clytemnestra  cunningly  avails  herself  of 
Agamemnon's  only  half- concealed  vanity  to  cover  her 
own  murderous  intent  and,  if  possible,  to  transfer  to  his 
account,  in  the  eyes  of  the  gods,  a  certain  debit  to  Neme- 
sis. She  would  persuade  him  to  enter  the  palace  tread- 
ing presumptuously  upon  royal  purple  tapestries,  and 
with  grim  ambiguity  she  says :  — 

And  now  to  pleasure  me,  dear  heart,  down  from  thy  carl 
Set  not  upon  the  ground,  my  lord,  that  foot  of  thine 
That  hath  sack'd  Ilium.   Maid  servants!   Why  delay 
To  strew  the  foot-path  of  his  road  with  tapestries? 
Forthwith  be  purple-paved  his  way!   Let  Justice  lead 
On  to  a  dwelling  where  he  scarce  had  hoped  to  come. 

Agamemnon,  flattered,  makes  a  show  of  resistance,  and 
finally,  to  ward  off  the  evil  consequences  of  presump- 


ARGOLIS  339 

tion,  compromises  by  bidding  the  slaves  unloose  his 
shoes :  — 

Lest  bolt  of  envy  from  the  gods'  eyes  from  afar 
Shall  strike  me  as  the  costly  purple  I  tread  down. 

As  he  yields  there  surges  before  the  vision  of  the  exult- 
ant Clytemnestra  another  sea :  — 

There  is  a  sea  and  who  shall  ever  drain  it  dry  ? 
It  guards  the  drops  of  bounteous  purple,  ever  fresh, 
As  silver  precious,  raiment's  dye.    Our  house,  my  lord, 
With  God's  help  hath  suSicient  store  of  these.    Our  halls 
Are  far  from  understanding  ways  of  poverty. 

As  she  turns  to  follow  her  victim  she  prays :  — 

O  Zeus!   O  Zeus  Fulfiller!  these  my  prayers  fulfil. 

The  captive  Cassandra  is  left  without.  Before  her 
searching  but  futile  insight  pass  by-gone  scenes  in  the 
bloodguilty  palace  to  which  she  has  just  come  as  a 
stranger.  She  points  to  the  murdered  infants  of  Thy- 
estes  and  their  "  roasted  flesh  upon  which  their  father 
banqueted."  Then  her  prophetic  vision  forecasts  the 
details  presently  to  be  enacted:  Agamemnon's  death 
and  her  own,  the  welcoming  bath,  the  ensnaring  robe, 
"  hand  after  hand  outstretching  blow  on  blow."  As  she 
goes  in  to  her  death  she  utters  lines  unsurpassed  in 
Greek  tragedy,  if  anywhere,  for  the  pathos  of  self- 
abnegating  contrast  between  the  littleness  of  the  in- 
dividual and  the  wider  aspects  of  the  universal :  — 

O  life  of  mortal  men !   If  that  it  fareth  well, 

'T  is  like  a  painting  sketch'd,  but,  comes  adversity. 

The  wet  sponge,  blurring,  touches  and  the  picture  's  gone ! 

And  this  than  that  I  count  more  piteous  by  faii 


340   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Two  solitary  outcries  from  Agamemnon,  struck  down 
within  the  palace,  float  out  on  the  waiting  silence  as 
the  chorus  ceases  its  chant.  To  the  elders  in  their  con- 
sternation appears  Clytemnestra,  exultant,  glorified 
by  success,  standing  over  the  dead  Agamemnon  and 
Cassandra.  One  might  reconstruct  the  scene  from  the 
palace  bathroom  uncovered  at  Tiryns.  She  speaks :  — 

Here  stand  I  where  I  struck  him,  o'er  the  finished  work, 

And  so  I  managed  —  no  denial  will  I  make  — 

That  there  was  no  escape  nor  warding  oflf  of  fate. 

A  netlike  wrap  without  an  outlet,  as  for  fish, 

I  stake  around,  the  evil  bounty  of  a  robe. 

And  thereupon  I  strike  him  twice  and  with  two  groans 

He  straight  relaxed  his  limbs  and,  for  him  lying  thus, 

I  add  a  third  blow,  thereunto,  as  votive  thanks 

To  Hades  underground,  the  corpses'  saviour  god. 

A  lyrical  dialogue  between  the  Queen  and  the  chorus 
follows:  exultation  and  execration;  justification  and 
lamentation.  Clytemnestra,  to  the  indignant  question 
of  the  chorus,  "Who  is  to  bury  him?"  replies  that  he 
is  her  dead  and  adroitly  takes  refuge  once  and  again  in 
the  necessity  of  avenging  Iphigeneia.  The  climax  of 
bitterness  is  reached  when  she  flings  forth  the  taunting 
suggestion  that  the  murdered  child  will  most  appro- 
priately welcome  her  dear  father  as  he  disembarks  at 
Charon's  ferry.  The  chorus,  bemoaning  him  "laid  low 
in  the  bath,  on  his  pallet  bedding  of  silver,"  asks 
again :  — 

Praises  and  requiem  who  shall  be  singing, 
Loyal  heart  to  the  labour  bringing, 
And  shower  the  godlike  man  with  tears  ? 


ARGOLIS  341 

And  Clytemnestra  replies :  — 

It  becomes  not  you  f5r  this  duty  to  care. 
At  my  hands  he  fell  down  and  he  lies  —  down  there ! 
And  't  is  I  that  shall  bury  him  —  down  below! 
And  't  is  not  with  laments  of  his  house  he  shall  go, 
But  his  Iphigeneia  with  welcoming  grace, 
As  't  is  just  to  require,  the  daughter  her  sire 
By  the  swift-flowing  Ferry  of  Groans  shall  face 
And  with  locked  arms  kiss  and  embrace  him! 

The  plays  by  the  three  dramatists  dealing  with  the 
slaying  of  Clytemnestra  by  her  son  and  the  meeting  and 
recognition  of  Orestes  and  his  older  sister  Electra  fill 
out  many  a  detail  of  the  Argive  land  and  cities  as  they 
were  seen  or  imagined  in  the  fifth  century.  Although 
Sophocles  lays  the  scene  of  his  "Electra"  at  "opulent 
Mycenae,"  his  allusions  to  the  "renowned  temple  of 
Hera,"  to  the  "Lycaean  agora  of  the  wolf-slaying  god," 
and  to  the  "  grove  of  the  frenzied  daughters  of  Inachus" 
—  all  as  part  of  the  immediate  environment  —  seem  to 
imply  stage-setting  which  brought  before  the  spectator 
the  Heraeum  and  Argos  itself  as  well  as  Mycenae.  In 
all  three  plays  the  tomb  of  Agamemnon,  around  which 
the  action  goes  on,  seems  to  be  outside  of  the  city. 

The  scene  of  the  "Electra"  of  Euripides  is  laid  on 
the  mountain  frontier,  by  which  way  the  exiled  Orestes 
would  naturally  arrive  from  Phocis.  Not  only  does  this 
play  give  a  feeling  for  the  Argive  landscape,  changing 
little  while  Mycenae  rose  and  fell,  but  the  simple  and 
dignified  peasant  farmer,  Electra's  husband  in  name 
only,  is  one  of  the  dramatist's  noblest  creations.    The 


342   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

suggestion  of  his  high-bom  though  remote  ancestry 
only  emphasizes  the  chivalry,  -far  removed  from  ser- 
vihty,  with  which  he  reverences  his  nominal  wife  as  a 
princess  of  the  land.  When  Electra,  in  the  shadow  of  the 
*' Night,  dark  foster  mother  of  the  golden  stars,"  goes 
to  fetch  water,  like  any  peasant  girl,  with  the  water-jar 
poised  on  her  head,  he  remonstrates  with  her,  but  divin- 
ing her  mood,  withdraws  his  objection :  — 

Nay,  go  thy  way,  an  so  thou  wilt,  not  distant  far 

The  fountains  from  our  dwelling.   I,  when  breaks  the  dawn. 

Must  with  my  oxen  turn  the  furrows  for  the  seed. 

In  this  play  the  horror  of  the  mother-murder  in  the 
peasant  home  is  sensibly  heightened  by  the  back- 
ground of  simple  hospitality.  The  deed  seems  more 
inevitable  in  the  "  Choephoroi "  of  ^schylus,  in  which 
Orestes  goes  in  to  slay  his  mother  just  where  she  had 
slain  his  father,  and  the  knocking,  knocking  at  the  pal- 
ace doors  seems  more  like  the  hand  of  fate,  or  like 
the  two  outcries  of  the  king  in  the  "  Agamemnon."  The 
play  closes,  as  it  should,  just  as  the  "wrathful  hounds  " 
of  his  mother  have  appeared  to  the  matricide.*  No  assur- 
ance of  the  chorus  that  they  are  unreal  fancies  of  his 
confused  brain  can  help  him.  He  must  away  over  the 
mountains  and  the  Isthmus  by  the  long  pathway  to 
Delphi  to  seek  the  restoring  purification  of  Apollo :  — 

You  cannot  see  them,  see  them  there,  but  I  can  see. 
I'm  driven  onward  —  nay,  no  longer  might  I  stay. 

*  For  extracts  from  the  Eumenides,  the  sequel  of  the  Choephoroi^ 
see  chapter  v,  p.  104,  and  p.  105;  also  see  chapter  xi,  p.  246. 


ARGOLIS  343 

Homer  lets  Hera,  wrangling  with  Zeus  in  regard  to 
Troy,  exclaim:  "Verily  three  are  the  dearest  to  me 
among  cities:  wide-wayed  Mycenae  and  Sparta  and 
Argos.''  The  Heraeum,  the  ancient  sanctuary  of  the 
goddess,  once  belonged  to  Mycenae,  and  traces  of  the 
Cyclopean  road  that  connected  them  are  still  visible. 
Here  the  "kings"  took  the  oath  of  allegiance  before 
sailing  to  Troy  with  Agamemnon  and  Menelaus.  Here 
on  their  return  the  Argives  dedicated  the  Trojan  spoils 
to  Hera.  The  herald  in  the  "Agamemnon"  says:  — 

While  speeding  over  land  and  sea,  to  yonder  light, 
The  sun's  light,  it  is  fitting  that  we  make  this  vaunt: 
*  Once,  sacking  Troy,  an  Argive  host  to  gods  of  Greece 
Nailed  up  these  spoils,  a  glorious  heirloom  in  their  halls.' 

Among  the  spoils  was  the  shield  of  the  Trojan  hero 
Euphorbus,  slain  by  Menelaus.  In  the  sixth  century, 
Pythagoras,  to  prove  that  in  a  previous  round  of  exist- 
ence he  had  been  Euphorbus,  entered  the  Heraeum  and 
instantly  identified  the  shield  as  his  own. 

From  Argos  to  the  Heraeum  it  was  a  distance  of  more 
than  five  miles.  Herodotus  relates  how  a  woman  of 
Argos,  wishing  to  be  present  at  Hera's  festival,  was 
unable  to  start  because  the  oxen  were  not  forthcoming 
in  season  to  draw  her  car.  Her  two  athlete  sons  put 
on  the  yoke  and  drew  the  heavy  car  quickly  across  the 
plain  and  up  the  hill.  When  the  Argive  women  con- 
gratulated her  on  being  mother  of  such  sons,  she,  "  ex- 
ultant over  their  deed  and  fame,  stood  before  the  statue 
of  Hera  and  prayed  that  to  her  sons,  Cleobis  and  Biton, 


344   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

who  had  honoured  her  greatly,  the  goddess  would  give 
whatever  gift  is  best  for  man  to  have.  And  the  youths, 
after  sacrifice  and  banquet,  lay  down  to  sleep  in  the 
sacred  precinct  itself  and  rose  up  no  more."  This 
answer  of  the  goddess  so  impressed  the  Argives  that 
they  set  up  the  statues  of  the  young  men  at  Delphi.  It 
pleases  the  imagination  to  identify  with  these  the  two 
archaic  statues  there  excavated  by  the  French;  and  a 
beautiful  Parian  marble  head  of  Hera,  found  by  the 
American  excavators  of  the  Heraeum,  has  preserved 
to  us  the  gracious  presentation  of  the  goddess  by  some 
great  sculptor  of  the  fifth  century. 

The  dramatis  personce  of  the  "  Suppliants"  of  iEschy- 
lus  vaguely  suggest  a  chapter  in  the  early  history  of 
Argolis.  Danaus  with  his  fifty  daughters  comes  from 
the  south,  fleeing  over  the  sea  from  his  brother  iEgyptus 
and  his  fifty  sons.  The  early  Pelasgian  inhabitants  of 
Argos  are  represented  by  the  king,  Pelasgus,  who  re- 
ceives the  suppliant  fugitives  into  the  safe  refuge  of  his 
Cyclopean  walls,  which  we  may  identify  with  the  pre- 
historic Larisa  citadel  above  Argos :  "  Go  get  ye  to  my 
city  fenced  with  goodly  walls,  fast  locked  within  the 
lofty  ramparts,  subtly  wrought."  Henceforward,  as  in 
Homer,  the  Argives  and  Danai  are  convertible  names. 
All  objection  to  the  newcomers  as  foreigners  is  neutral- 
ized by  realizing  that  they  have  only  returned  to  their 
original  home.  Inachus,  the  river  god,  was  the  father  of 
lo,  who,  half  transformed  into  a  heifer  by  the  jealousy 
of  Hera,  had  been  made  to  wander  frenzied  over  land 


ARGOLIS  345 

and  water  until  in  Egypt  she  brought  forth  a  son,  the 
great-grandfather  of  this  same  Danaus. 

In  the  sequel  to  the  "Suppliants"  ^schylus  gave  his 
interpretation  of  the  story  of  the  Danaides  and  their 
trial  for  the  forty-nine  murders  of  that  Saint  Bartholo- 
mew wedding  night.  Only  fragments  of  this  play  re- 
main, and  the  romance  of  Hypermnestra  is  familiar  to 
the  modern  world  chiefly  from  Horace's  incomparable 
ode.  In  the  "Prometheus,"  however,  yEschylus  both 
tells  the  lo  story  at  length  and  briefly  sketches  the  story 
of  Hypermnestra,  which,  with  the  "lovely  tale"  of 
Danae  and  the  infant  Perseus,  sheds  around  the  Perseid 
dynasty  of  Argos  a  fragrant  aroma  of  romance  in  strik- 
ing contrast  to  the  gruesome  annals  of  the  Pelopid 
family,  which  waft  now  and  again  to  our  nostrils  the 
scent  of  human  blood  and  the  breath  of  the  charnel 
vault.  Prometheus  prophesies  to  lo  that,  in  the  fifth 
generation  from  her  Egyptian-born  son,  fifty  maidens, 
daughters  of  Danaus,  — 

Shall  come,  not  willing  it,  to  Argos  back  again. 

Wedlock  with  kinsmen  cousins  they  are  fain  to  shun, 

But  these  with  hearts  a-flutter,  falcons  after  doves, 

Not  distanced  far,  shall  come  to  hunt  their  quarry  down, 

Seeking  a  wedlock  that  should  not  be  sought.    But  God 

Shall  grudge  their  mating.   In  her  soil  Pelasgia 

Shall  give  them  lodging,  slain,  laid  low  by  women's  hands, 

Ares-emboldened,  waking  sentinels  of  night. 

For  wife  each  husband  of  his  life  shall  rob,  and  dye 

Her  two-edged  sword  in  murder.   May  God  grant,  with  love 

Like  this,  that  Cypris  come  upon  my  enemies ! 

One  maiden  only  shall  love  soften  and  forbid 

To  slay  her  love-mate.   Nay,  her  purpose  she  shall  blunt 


346   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

And  of  twain  choices  offered  she  shall  rather  choose 
To  bear  the  name  of  coward  than  of  murderess. 
From  her  in  Argos  shall  be  bred  a  royal  line. 

Lynceus  is  saved,  under  cover  of  night,  by  Hypermnes- 
tra,  and  escaping,  as  Pausanias  tells  us,  by  the  Diras 
gate,  he  signals  back  to  her  his  safety  by  means  of  a 
beacon  light  on  Mount  Lyrcea,  and  she  replies  by  an- 
other from  Larisa.  On  this  Larisa  mountain,  rising 
above  the  plain,  there  is  lavished  as  a  setting  for  the 
picturesque  ancient  and  mediaeval  ruins  a  colour  scheme 
of  green,  rich  reds  and  brown  that  delights  the  artist's 
eye. 

Argos  itself,  continuously  inhabited  through  the  cen- 
turies, offers  few  reminders  of  antiquity  except  the  steep 
seats  of  the  theatre.  The  beautiful  wolf  head  on  the 
extant  Argive  drachmas  reminds  us  of  the  Wolf  Agora 
of  Sophocles  and  of  the  Wolf  Apollo  dedicated  by 
Danaus  when  he  had  ungratefully  snapped  away  the 
kingdom  from  his  Pelasgian  host.  We  are  glad  to  leave 
to  Pausanias  the  description  of  the  sights  of  historic 
Argos  and  to  follow  Amymone,  one  of  the  Danaids,  as 
she  goes  down  the  plain  of  "  thirsty  Argos,"  water- jar  on 
head,  to  fetch  water  at  Lerna.  She  went  to  the  fountain 
once  too  often,  if  we  may  trust  the  legend.  Lucian 
describes  how  Poseidon,  inflamed  by  Triton's  account 
of  her  beauty,  too  impetuous  to  wait  for  his  royal 
team,  had  thrown  himself  hastily  on  the  fastest  dolphin 
available  and  had  come  riding  up  the  bay.  Amymone, 
as  she  is  carried  off,  cries  out:  "Fellow,  where  are  you 


ARGOLIS  347 

carrying  me  off  to?  You're  a  kidnapper  sent  after  us, 
I  suppose,  by  uncle  ^gyptus.  I'll  call  my  father!" 
(Triton)  "Hush,  Amymone,  it's  Poseidon."  (Amy- 
mone)  "What  Poseidon  are  you  talking  of?  Fellow, 
why  do  you  drag  me  and  force  me  into  the  sea  ?  I  '11 
choke,  poor  me,  as  I  go  down !"  Poseidon  comforts  her 
by  telling  her  that  she  shall  escape,  as  his  bride,  not 
only  her  daily  five-mile  walk  as  a  water-carrier  in  Argos 
but  her  sisters'  futile  task  in  Hades  of  carrying  water 
in  a  sieve.  He  promises  her  also  a  fountain,  called  by 
her  name.  This  promise  was  kept;  by  leaving  the 
railroad  at  Myli,  the  second  station  below  Argos,  we 
can  still  see  the  fountain.  Here  Heracles,  her  sister's 
descendant,  slew  the  Lernaean  hydra. 

If  we  coast  down  the  west  side  of  the  bay  we  come 
to  Cynuria,  whose  autochthonous  inhabitants  would 
seem  to  have  belonged,  like  their  Arcadian  neighbours, 
to  the  pre- Dorian  "Pelasgic"  stock.  Herodotus  gives 
a  dramatic  account  of  one  of  the  contests  for  the  pos- 
session of  this  territory  between  Spartans  and  Argives, 
in  the  sixth  century,  which  might  serve  as  a  pendant  for 
the  Roman  story  of  the  Horatii  and  the  Curiatii.  Three 
hundred  Spartans  and  three  hundred  Argives,  chosen 
as  champions,  engaged  while  the  main  armies  with- 
drew. Two  Argives  only  survived,  and  they,  thinking 
the  Spartans  all  dead,  ran  off  home  to  announce  the 
victory.  One  half-dead  Spartan,  however,  Othryades, 
was  able  to  write  with  his  blood  his  name  upon  a  trophy 
which  he  erected  of  Argive  armour.  Each  side  claimed 


348    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

the  victory,  with  the  result  that  the  full  armies  engaged 
and  the  Spartans  conquered.  Othryades,  however, 
ashamed  to  survive  his  comrades,  killed  himself  on  the 
field. 

Nauplia,  across  the  bay  from  Lerna,  is  full  of  sugges- 
tion for  the  prehistoric  settlement  of  Argolis,  and  of  asso- 
ciations with  modem  history.  It  has  fewer  direct  points 
of  contact  with  classic  literature.  Nauplius,  the  founder, 
according  to  tradition,  was  the  son  of  Amymone  and  of 
Poseidon,  who  was  here  able  to  assert  himself  against 
the  predominance  of  Hera  further  inland.  Hera,  in- 
deed, had  the  Achaean  Zeus  to  curb  on  the  north  and 
may  have  been  glad  to  compromise  with  Poseidon  for 
a  safe-conduct  permitting  her  to  make  her  necessary 
annual  visit  to  the  baths  of  Kanathos,  east  of  Nauplia. 
By  way  of  Nauplia,  as  we  have  seen,  the  alphabet  may 
have  entered  Greece,  and  here  the  less  valuable  but 
costly  cargoes  of  Trojan  spoils  were  landed,  bringing 
one  and  another  hint  and  pattern  of  trans-iEgean  art. 
Here  Menelaus,  detained  by  storm  long  after  his  bro- 
ther, finally  landed :  — 

Back  to  the  land  has  Menelaus  come  from  Troy, 
At  Nauplia  in  harbour  moored,  while  near  the  beach 
The  oar-blades  fall,  returned  from  his  long  wandering. 

No  more  beautiful  mooring- place  for  home- coming  war- 
riors could  be  found  than  the  water-front  of  Nauplia, 
lying  beneath  the  majestic  rock  of  Palamidi,  guard  of 
the  sea- entrance  to  the  Argolid. 

On  the  low  acropolis  of  Tir3nis  recent  excavations 


ARGOLIS  349 

have  uncovered  the  "Lower  Castle"  to  the  north  of  the 
Middle  and  Upper  fortresses  already  known.  Pausa- 
nias  attributed  the  founding  of  Tiryns  to  members  of 
the  Danaus  family,  Acrisius  remaining  in  Argos  and 
Proetus  taking  as  his  share  the  Herasum,  Midea,  Tiryns, 
and  the  coast  of  Argolis.  Acrisius,  to  forestall  an  oracle, 
according  to  which  he  was  to  be  slain  by  a  grandson, 
shut  up  Danae,  his  daughter,  in  a  tower  of  bronze. 
Zeus  descended  to  her  in  a  shower  of  gold,  and  when 
Perseus  was  bom  Acrisius  committed  to  the  sea  mother 
and  child  in  a  chest.  The  translation  by  John  Adding- 
ton  Symonds  of  a  fragment  from  Simonides  describing 
this  event  fully  preserves  the  pathos  for  which  Simon- 
ides was  famous :  — 

"  When  in  the  carven  chest, 
The  winds  that  blew  and  waves  in  wild  unrest 
Smote  her  with  fear,  she,  not  with  cheeks  unwet, 
Her  arms  of  love  round  Perseus  set, 

And  said:  *0  child,  what  grief  is  mine! 
But  thou  dost  slumber,  and  thy  baby  breast 
Is  sunk  in  rest, 

Here  in  the  cheerless  brass-bound  bark, 
Tossed  amid  starless  night  and  pitchy  dark. 

Nor  dost  thou  heed  the  scudding  brine 
Of  waVes  that  wash  above  thy  curls  so  deep. 
Nor  the  shrill  winds  that  sweep,  — 
Lapped  in  thy  purple  robe's  embrace, 
Fair  little  face ! 

But  if  this  dread  were  dreadful  too  to  thee. 
Then  wouldst  thou  lend  thy  listening  ear  to  me; 
Therefore  I  cry,  —  Sleep  babe,  and  sea  be  still, 
And  slumber  our  unmeasured  ill! '  " 

The  Nereids,  charmed  with  the  beauty  of  the  child, 


350   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

guided  the  chest  safely  into  the  net  of  the  fishermen  of 
the  little  island  of  Seriphos.  Perseus,  on  his  return  to 
Argos,  went  up  to  Larisa,  to  which  Acrisius  had  retired, 
and  while  displaying  his  skill  with  the  quoit  acciden- 
tally killed  his  grandfather.  Thus  was  fulfilled  the  doom 
to  avoid  which  Acrisius  had  shut  up  Danae  in  the 
bronze  tower  at  Argos.  Perseus,  ashamed  at  this  homi- 
cide, and  perhaps  disliking  Argos  by  reason  of  his 
mother's  ill-treatment,  persuaded  the  son  of  Prcetus  to 
change  kingdoms  with  him,  and  so  he  came  to  live  at 
Tiryns,  and  from  there  went  up  the  plain  and  founded 
Mycenae  where  a  mushroom  (mykes)  that  he  pulled  up 
when  thirsty  gave  him  a  draught  of  water.  The  greater 
antiquity  of  Tiryns  implied  in  this  legend  is  not  incon- 
sistent with  archaeological  evidence,  and  the  fable  that 
Proetus,  the  first  king  of  Tiryns,  imported  from  Lycia 
seven  Cyclopes  as  ♦builders  is  a  vague  record  of  the 
foreign  contribution  made  to  this  ancient  centre.  The 
Cyclopean  walls  in  Argolis,  often  alluded  to  in  the  fifth 
century,  were  at  least  as  conspicuous  at  Tiryns  as  else- 
where, and  this  acropolis  near  the  sea  would  fit  the 
situation  in  the  "Trojan  Women"  of  Euripides  where 
the  captive,  lamenting  her  dead  husband  deprived  of 
burial  rites,  anticipates  with  dread  the  landing  at 
Nauplia :  — 

Beloved,  O  my  husband  dear, 
Thou  'rt  wandering,  a  spectral  fear, 

Unburied  and  unlaved. 
But  me  the  hull  that  cleaves  the  sea 


ARGOLIS  351 

Shall  bear  with  spread  wings  far  from  thee 

To  Argos,  nurse  of  steeds, 
Where  Cyclopean  walls  rear  high 
Their  giant  stones  to  flaunt  the  sky. 

To-day,  in  the  spring,  the  hill  of  Tiryns  is  covered  with 
slender  stalks  of  asphodel,  while  amidst  flowers  delicate 
and  shadowy  as  these,  along  the  pathways  of  the  "  as- 
phodel meadows"  below,  steal  the  ghosts  of  the  ancient 
masters  of  these  Cyclopean  walls  and  galleries. 

Mycenag  and  Tiryns,  linked  in  tradition  with  the 
name  of  Perseus,  both  sent  men  to  Plataea  to  fight 
against  the  Persians.  In  a  little  more  than  a  decade 
thereafter  they  were  both  captured  and  destroyed  by 
Argos,  jealous  of  their  proximity  and  of  their  place  on 
the  national  roll  of  honour  from  which  she  had  excluded 
herself.  At  the  end  of  another  decade  ^schylus  chose 
to  flatter  the  Argives,  just  then  the  allies  of  Athens,  by 
transferring  from  Mycenae  to  their  town  the  scene  of  the 
"Agamemnon." 

In  addition  to  the  plain  of  Argolis  the  "Akte,"  or 
peninsula  proper,  has  its  own  history  and  association?. 
Leaving  Tiryns  and  Nauplia  behind,  the  road  to  ti 
inland  Epidaurus  sanctuary  is  overlooked  from  the 
north  by  the  naked  ridge  of  Mount  Arachneum,  from 
which  flashed  to  the  palace  roof  at  Argos  the  last  relay 
of  flame  in  the  chain  of  beacons.  The  Epidaurian 
Asclepieum  claimed  the  honour  of  the  birth  of  the 
god  of  healing,  the  foundling  son  of  Apollo,  who  was 
suckled  by  a  goat.  From  this  parent  sanatorium  others 


L 


352   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

were  established  throughout  Greece.  The  Athenians 
even  called  "Epidauria"  one  of  the  days  used  for  the 
worship  of  Asclepius.  In  a  fragmentary  hymn  to  the 
god,  found  at  Athens,  reference  is  made  to  the  oracle 
quoted  by  Pausanias  Us  beginning:  "Great  joy  for 
mortals  all  thy  birth,  Asclepius!  Thou,  love-child  of 
Koronis  and  my  own,  wast  born  in  rugged  Epidaurus !" 
In  the  precinct  of  this  famous  health-resort  was  found 
a  tablet  inscribed  with  a  hymn  by  Isyllus,  an  Epidaurian 
poet,  containing  the  genealogy  of  the  god's  mother  and 
telling  how  Apollo  named  the  child  and  called  him 
"Destroyer  of  disease,  Health-giver,  mighty  Gift  to 
men."  Homer's  epithet  for  Epidaurus  is  "abounding 
in  vines, "  and  in  later  days  Dionysus  was  not  neglected. 
The  auditorium,  with  the  circle  of  the  orchestra  still 
completely  marked  by  a  sunken  rim  of  stone,  is  the 
most  beautiful  and  the  best  preserved  of  the  theatres 
in  Greece,  and  one  may  here  better  than  at  Athens 
imagine  the  mise-en-schne  of  the  great  dramas  for  which 
the  Argolid  furnished  so  largely  the  subject  matter.  The 
opening  scene  of  the  "Ion"  of  Plato  brings  before  us 
the  star  rhapsodist  of  his  day,  relating  how  he  is  just 
back  from  the  Asclepius  festival  at  Epidaurus  where 
the  Epidaurians  held  a  contest,  not  only  in  his  own 
specialty  of  reciting  Homer  but  in  lyric  poetry  besides. 
In  Epidaurus  were  celebrated  the  usual  games,  as  the 
well-preserved  Stadium  testifies  and  as  we  know  from 
more  than  one  passage  of  Pindar.  In  the  Abaton,  now 
more  fully  excavated,  have  been  found  some  of  the 


ARGOLIS  353 

tablets  dedicated  by  grateful  patients  who  had  been 
cured  by  sleeping  in  the  precinct.  Cures  of  blindness, 
palsy,  ulcers,  dropsy,  internal  maladies  and  external 
wounds  are  recorded  in  this  medical  literature,  which 
Strabo  tells  us  was  here  displayed  in  great  abundance, 
as  in  the  great  Sanatorium  of  Hippocrates  on  the  island 
of  Cos. 

Troezen,  far  down  the  eastern  side  of  the  peninsula, 
both  geographically  and  by  its  associations,  historical 
and  mythological,  turns  our  thoughts  away  from  Dorian 
Argos  and  across  the  Saronic  Gulf  to  Athens.  It  was 
here  that  some  of  the  Athenian  women  and  children 
found  a  place  of  refuge  during  the  Persian  invasion. 
In  a  colonnade  of  the  market-place  Pausanias  saw  por- 
trait statues  of  those  refugees  whose  rank  and  wealth 
permitted  this  expression  of  their  gratitude.  Here  in 
the  harbour  the  Peloponnesians  assembleii  before  sail- 
ing to  join  the  fleet  in  the  Straits  of  Salamis.  The  ruined 
remains  of  the  acropolis  are  insignificant,  but  our  vision, 
like  that  of  the  refugees,  may  range  over  the  wonderful 
landscape  —  Parnassus  beyond  the  Isthmus  and  gulf, 
mountains  and  headlands,  and  the  JEgean  set  with 
island  jewels — back  to  the  fertile  plain  below,  which 
in  modern  times  has  welcomed  the  beauty  of  the  orange 
and  the  lemon  to  replace  the  vanished  glory  of  the 
kings  and  heroes  of  antiquity. 

Plutarch,  in  his  "Life  of  Theseus,"  relates  the  well- 
known  story  that  the  young  prince  in  the  dawning 
vigour  of  manhood  is  taken  by  his  mother  to  test  his 


354   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

strength  on  the  great  rock  beneath  which  lie  concealed 
the  tokens  left  by  his  father  to  guarantee  his  royal  birth. 
He  lifts  the  rock  and  takes  the  sword  and  the  sandals. 
Emulous  of  the  fame  of  Heracles,  he  rejects  the  sug- 
gestion of  the  easy  voyage  across  the  Saronic  Gulf,  and 
by  the  dangerous  land  route,  where  wild  beasts  and 
giants  must  be  met  and  slain,  he  makes  his  way  past 
the  ill-famed  Scironian  rocks  to  Athens,  and  claims  the 
paternity  of  ^geus  and  becomes  the  national  hero  of 
his  father's  land. 

In  the  "Hippolytus"  of  Euripides  we  find  Theseus, 
self-exiled  from  Athens  for  a  year,  again  in  Troezen,  the 
realm  of  Pittheus,  his  maternal  grandfather,  who  has 
had  the  rearing  of  his  son,  Hippolytus.  The  handsome 
youth  has  been  seen  at  Eleusis  by  Phaedra,  his  young 
stepmother,  who  then  and  there  falls  in  love  with  him. 
He  is,  however,  a  somewhat  intractable  compound  of  a 
Jehu  and  a  Joseph,  wholly  absorbed  in  colourless  de- 
votion to  Artemis  and  inaccessible  to  the  blandishments 
of  Aphrodite,  who  uses  the  unlucky  Phaedra  as  a  cat's- 
paw  to  punish  the  intrusion  of  the  divine  huntress  into 
the  sphere  of  influence  rightfully  belonging  to  the  god- 
dess of  love.  Phasdra,  despairing  and  mortified  at  her 
rejection  by  Hippolytus,  very  properly  hangs  herself, 
but  by  way  of  securing  her  posthumous  justification 
leaves  a  note  for  her  husband,  accusing  the  innocent 
Hippolytus.  Theseus,  in  his  rage,  banishes  his  son  and 
invokes  a  curse  by  Poseidon.  Faring  forth  in  his  chariot 
Hippolytus,  though  an  excellent  whip,  is  unable  to  cope 


ARGOLIS  355 

with  the  great  bull  sent  up  from  the  sea.  This  so  ter- 
rifies the  horses  that  their  driver  is  thrown  upon  the 
rocks  and  dies,  after  Artemis,  a  somewhat  tardy  dea  ex 
machina,  has  appeared  to  the  now  remorseful  Theseus 
and  has  exonerated  his  son.  This  favourite  drama,  in 
addition  to  the  admirable  drawing  of  Phaedra's  char- 
acter, combines  the  grandeur  of  the  sea  as  it  roars  up 
in  a  tidal  wave,  envisaging  the  terrible  sea-bull,  and  the 
loveliness  of  the  Troezenian  meadows  where  Hippoly- 
tus,  a  replica  of  the  young  Ion  in  Apollo's  temple,  pre- 
sented the  vision  of  human  beauty,  so  dear  to  Greek 
eyes,  in  its  appropriate  setting  of  nature's  lonely 
charm.* 

In  addition  to  these  more  superficial  attractions  there 
was  at  Troezen  one  of  the  most  popular  entrances  to 
the  lower  world.  Here  Heracles  fetched  up  Cerberus, 
and  by  this  route  Dionysus  brought  back  his  mother 
Semele.  It  is  also  reasonable  to  suppose  that  Theseus, 
from  a  sense  of  local  pride,  must  have  passed  down 
this  way  when  he  assisted  his  friend  Pirithoiis  in  his 
designs  on  Persephone. 

Troezen,  however,  had  a  rival  in  this  underground 
traffic.  Hermione,  the  home  of  the  poets  Lasus  and 
Kydias,  on  the  south  coast  of  the  peninsula,  claimed 
the  rather  dubious  advantage  of  the  closest  proximity 
to  Hades.  Strabo,  the  geographer,  records  the  boast 
of  the  people  of  Hermione  that  on  their  short  line 
Charon's  obol  is  not  exacted  of  the  passengers,  ''and 

*  See  chapter  i,  p.  26,  for  hymn  to  Artemis  from  the  Hippolytus. 


3S^       GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

therefore,"  he  adds,  "they  do  not  here  put  in  a  fare 
for  the  corpse."  The  cost  of  travel  to  Hermione  would 
have  overbalanced  for  people  at  a  distance  the  Ferr}-- 
man's  very  moderate  fee,  or  perhaps  the  route  may  have 
been  open  for  local  traffic  only.  At  all  events  this 
exception  was  not  known  in  Greece  generally.  We 
find  in  Lucian's  dialogues  that  the  Cynic  Menippus, 
with  never  an  obol  to  his  mouth,  takes  his  chance  as  a 
stowaway  or  offers  to  Charon  to  work  his  passage,  while 
the  corpse  of  the  poor  cobbler  Micyllus,  also  unpro- 
vided with  the  necessary  fee,  heedless,  since  he  is  dead 
already,  of  the  risk  of  drowning,  starts  in  to  swim. 

Close  to  the  Troezen  shore  is  the  island  of  Calauria, 
the  modem  Poros,  where  "outrageous  Fortune"  shot 
home  one  of  her  most  virulent  arrows.  On  a  high 
plateau  near  the  middle  of  the  island  are  the  remains 
of  the  ancient  precinct  and  temple  of  Poseidon.  Here, 
where  he  could  look  over  to  Sunium,  the  "headland  of 
Athens,"  Demosthenes,  a  fugitive  from  the  wrath  of 
Macedon,  waited  for  his  pursuers.  Plutarch  relates 
that,  discrediting  the  promises  of  safety  made  to  lure 
him  from  sanctuary,  he  withdrew  within  the  temple 
and,  after  taking  the  poison  which  he  had  secreted, 
tottered  forth  to  die  outside  in  order  to  avoid  defiling 
the  sacred  precinct.  The  Athenians  later  set  up  his 
statue  in  bronze,  and  on  it  was  inscribed :  — 

Had  but  thy  power,  Demosthenes, 

Equalled  thy  will, 
Macedon  ne'er  had  ruled  Hellas, 

Free  were  she  still. 


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ARGOLIS  357 

The  great  orator  whose  powerful  will  had  first,  as  it  was 
said,  won  control  over  his  unruly  tongue  and  weak  voice 
amidst  the  roar  of  the  sea,  and  who  by  his  words  had 
controlled  the  still  more  turbulent  populace,  died  here 
with  unbroken  will  under  the  gray  shadow  of  Poseidon's 
sanctuary.  This  was  one  of  the  oldest  stone  temples  in 
Greece,  probably  contemporary  with  the  sixth  century 
temple  of  the  sea-god  at  Posidonia,  the  modern  Pass- 
tum.  Already  dignified  by  time  its  columns  looked 
down  on  the  fleet  that  put  forth  for  Salamis  from  the 
neighbouring  Troezen,  relying  now  for  the  sea-fight  on 
the  help  of  Poseidon  rather  than  upon  the  goddess  of 
the  Heraeum  who  had  presided  over  the  start  for  Troy, 
at  the  time  of  the  preliminary  clash,  still  unforgotten, 
of  Asia  with  Greece. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

ARCADIA 

The  winding  valleys  deep-withdrawn  and  ridged  crests  of  Arcady. 

Pindar. 

OF  the  temples  that  once  adorned  the  mainland 
and  the  islands  of  Greece  only  a  brave  few 
now  rear  columns  from  the  ground.  Among 
these  the  Temple  of  Apollo  at  Bassae  constrains  the 
traveller  to  penetrate  to  the  heart  of  Arcadia.  The  re- 
wards of  the  difficult  journey  are  many,  and  are  en- 
hanced by  a  general  knowledge  of  the  whole  Arcadian 
territory,  into  which  the  detached  impressions  of  a 
brief  stay  may  be  sympathetically  fitted. 

Homer  says  that  the  Arcadians  went  to  Troy  in  ves- 
sels borrowed  from  Agamemnon,  because  they  had 
none  of  their  own.  The  most  potent  fact  in  the  history 
and  development  of  Arcadia  is  its  isolated  position 
as  the  one  inland  country  (save  little  Doris)  of  Greece. 
Only  from  the  heights  of  the  encircling  mountains  could 
her  people  catch  sight  of  distant  seas.  Those  whom 
the  sea-spell  lured  with  irresistible  magic  left  their 
hills  to  seek  foreign  coasts  and  enlist  in  foreign  navies. 
The  Arcadians  have  rightly  been  called  the  mercena- 
ries of  Greece.   Those  who  stayed  at  home  lived  the 


ARCADIA  359 

restricted  life  of  a  population  cut  off  from  intercourse 
with  the  larger  world.  The  entire  territory  is  composed 
of  high  land,  its  lowest  elevation  from  the  sea  being 
more  than  two  thousand  feet.  In  the  east  are  great 
plains  of  swampy  ground,  and  lakes  drained  by  under- 
ground channels.  Towards  the  west  the  land  becomes 
an  irregular,  hilly  plateau  intersected  by  rivers.  In 
antiquity  superb  forests  of  oaks  and  pines,  coverts  for 
many  a  wild  beast,  contributed  to  that  general  physical 
wildness  which  prevented  a  people  untouched  by  for- 
eign ideas  from  uniting  in  a  progressive  political  life. 
Even  against  the  background  of  Greek  individualism 
their  history  is  conspicuously  one  of  separate  towns. 
And  of  these  towns  few  attained  to  any  eminence. 

Arcadia  contained  the  oldest  and  the  youngest  of  all 
Greek  cities.  The  latter,  Megalopolis,  is  still  in  civic 
existence,  and  is  the  terminus  of  the  modern  railroad 
ride  from  Athens  for  those  who  are  on  their  way  to  Bas- 
sae.  It  was  the  last  town  founded  in  free  Greece,  and 
its  establishment  originated  in  the  ardent  hope  of 
Epaminondas  to  unite-  the  scattered  Arcadians  under 
one  government.  In  the  same  southwestern  portion  of 
Arcadia,  near  the  young  Megalopolis  and  easily  reached 
from  it  on  horses,  lie  the  ruins  of  old  Lycosura,  be- 
lieved by  the  Greeks  to  be  the  most  ancient  of  all  their 
cities  and  to  have  served  as  a  model  for  later  founda- 
tions. 

But  the  chief  roles  in  the  political  life  of  Arcadia  were 
played  by  Mantinea  and  Tegea,  cities  lying  in  the  wide 


36o   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

eastern  plains.  Near  them  lay  Pallantium,  and  within 
the  territories  of  these  three  cities  flourishes  the  modern 
Tripolis,  in  its  origin  an  important  Turkish  stronghold 
and  now  one  of  the  most  prosperous  towns  of  the  new 
nation.  The  sanguinary  history  of  Tripolis  in  the  War 
of  Independence  was  worthy  of  the  ancient  character 
of  Mantinea  and  Tegea. 

Although  Homer  called  Mantinea  "lovely,"  her  life 
was  one  of  military  activity.  Mantineans  fought  at 
Thermopylae,  but  it  is  in  the  pages  of  the  historians  of 
later  periods,  of  Thucydides,  Xenophon,  and  Polybius, 
that  they  chiefly  figure,  fighting  on  their  own  territory 
against  Sparta  or  with  Sparta  against  Thebes.  This 
evil  coalition  resulted  in  the  famous  battle  of  362  b.  c, 
in  which  Epaminondas  fought  for  the  last  time.  The 
description  of  the  battle  forms  the  close  of  Xenophon's 
treatise  on  Greek  History,  and  the  chaotic  results  of  the 
long-anticipated  struggle,  whereby  "neither  party, 
though  each  ^claimed  to  have  conquered,  was  seen  to 
gain  any  more  in  land  or  cities  or  authority  than  it  pos- 
sessed before  the  battle  was  fought,"  are  set  forth  by 
him  with  considerable  vividness.  But  the  momentous 
fact  that  in  this  battle  the  great  Theban  commander 
lost  his  life  he  disposes  of  in  a  subordinate  clause.  This 
petty  injustice  is  the  more  singular  because  the  fatal 
blow  was  afterward  believed  to  have  been  struck  by 
Xenophon's  son,  Grylus,  who  received  a  public  burial 
and  monument  at  Mantinea.  It  is  Pausanias  who 
admits  us  to  the  last  scene  of  a  noble  life,  enacted  among 


ARCADIA  361 

the  alien,  windswept  oaks  of  Arcadia,  on  the  hill  now 
known  as  Mytika.  ''When  Epaminondas  received  his 
wound,  they  carried  him  out  of  the  line  of  battle.  He 
was  still  in  life.  He  suffered  much,  but  with  his  hand 
pressed  on  his  wound  he  kept  looking  hard  at  the  fight, 
and  the  place  from  which  he  watched  it  was  after- 
wards named  '  Scope '  (the  Lookout).  But  when  the 
combat  ended  indecisively  he  took  his  hand  from 
the  wound  and  breathed  his  last,  and  they  buried  him 
on  the  battlefield." 

The  memory  of  Epaminondas  inspired  a  later  hero 
who  not  only  fought  at  another  battle  of  Mantinea  but 
was  himself  a  son  of  the  Arcadian  soil.  In  the  period 
of  the  Achaean  League,  Philopoemen,  bom  in  Megalo- 
polis, was  eight  times  chosen  to  be  the  general  of  the 
united  forces,  and  in  206  b.  c.  he  met  and  conquered 
at  Mantinea  the  recalcitrant  Spartans  who  had  refused 
to  join  the  league.  The  description  of  this  battle  is 
given  to  us  by  Polybius,  his  younger  fellow  townsman, 
who  at  the  hero's  death  was  the  youth  selected  to  bear 
his  ashes  to  the  tomb.  Because  all  such  victories  in 
the  cause  of  freedom  were  but  fitful  gleams  of  the  fire 
whose  flame  had  been  quenched  at  Chaeronea,  it  is  the 
more  necessary  to  give  heed  to  a  character  like  Philo- 
poemen, from  the  day  of  whose  death,  Pausanias  sadly 
remarks,  Greece  ceased  to  be  the  mother  of  the  brave. 
He  closes  the  long  line  of  Greeks  who  led  their  peoples 
to  liberty.  At  one  of  the  Olympic  festivals  the  whole 
audience  in  the  theatre  rose  to  greet  Themistocles,  who 


362   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

had  saved  Greece  from  Persia.  And  centuries  later  a 
similar  tribute  was  paid  to  Philopoemen.  Not  long  after 
his  victory  over  the  Spartans  it  chanced  that  he  was 
present  at  the  competition  of  the  minstrels  at  the  Ne- 
mean  Games.  "Py lades,  a  native  of  Megalopolis,  and 
the  most  famous  minstrel  of  his  time,  who  had  gained 
a  Pythian  victory,  was  singing  an  air  of  Timotheus,  the 
Milesian,  called  '  The  Persians.'  Scarcely  had  he  struck 
up  the  song, '  The  glorious  crown  of  freedom  who  giveth 
to  Greece, '  when  all  the  people  turned  and  looked  at 
Philopoemen,  and  with  clapping  of  hands  signified  that 
the  song  referred  to  him." 

Few  men  in  history  are  more  interesting  than  Phi- 
lopoemen. From  youth  to  a  hale  old  age  he  lived  the 
life  of  his  choice,  combining  rugged  and  fearless  sin- 
cerity with  keen  military  knowledge,  and  uniting  in  an 
unusual  degree  the  reckless  impulsiveness  of  a  free- 
booter with  the  patient  power  of  a  skilful  general. 
When  one  term  of  his  generalship  had  expired,  he  hur- 
ried over  to  Crete  to  help  in  a  war  which  in  no  way  con- 
cerned him ;  but  his  countrymen,  accustomed  to  depend 
upon  his  ability,  summoned  him  back,  and  he  arrived 
on  the  mainland  just  in  time  to  find  that  the  Romans 
had  fitted  out  a  fleet  against  Sparta,  and  to  plunge  into 
the  fray.  Being  no  sailor,  however,  he  unwittingly  em- 
barked in  a  leaky  galley,  which  reminded  the  Romans 
and  their  allies  (in  those  days  every  man  had  read  his 
classics  at  school)  of  the  verses  in  the  Catalogue  in 
which  Homer  speaks  of  the  Arcadians  as  ignorant  of 


ARCADIA  363 

the  sea.  After  eight  successful  generalships  and  many 
brilliant  exploits,  when  he  was  more  than  seventy  years 
old,  Philopoemen  was  captured  and  poisoned  by  the 
Messenians.  In  him  Arcadia  lost  her  greatest  son,  in 
whom  had  lived  her  own  wildness  and  her  own  patience, 
her  own  flaming  spirit  and  her  own  honourable  aus- 
terity. According  to  Polybius,  he  had  harboured  no 
illusions 'about  the  future  of  his  country  and  of  Hellas, 
but  had  chosen  to  offer  his  life,  while  it  lasted,  as  a 
bulwark  against  the  inevitable.  "  I  know  full  well,"  he 
said  in  answer  to  Aristaenus's  criticism  of  his  policy  of 
resisting  all  unjust  encroachments  from  Rome,  "  that 
there  will  hereafter  come  a  time  when  the  Greeks  will 
have  to  yield  obedience  under  compulsion  to  every 
order  issued  to  them.  But  would  one  wish  to  see  this 
time  come  as  quickly  as  possible  or,  on  the  contrary, 
postponed  as  late  as  possible?  Methinks  as  late  as 
possible  I  In  this,  then,  the  policy  of  Aristaenus  differs 
from  my  own.  He  is  eager  to  see  the  inevitable  come 
as  quickly  as  possible  and  he  helps  it  on  to  the  best  of 
his  ability,  whereas  I  to  the  best  of  my  power  resist 
and  thrust  it  back."  One  false  hope,  according  to 
Pausanias,  he  did  treasure:  ''He  would  fain  have 
modelled  his  life  on  the  pattern  set  by  the  character 
and  deeds  of  Epaminondas,  but  could  not  equal  him 
in  all  things,  for  while  the  temper  of  Epaminondas 
was  very  gentle,  that  of  the  Arcadian  was  passionate." 
Although  Arcadia's  part  in  the  Persian  wars  was  not 
heroic,  Tegea,  like  Mantinea,  proved  her  bravery  at 


364   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Thermopylae,  and  at  Plataea,  according  to  Herodotus, 
her  citizens  struggled  with  the  Athenians  for  the  fore- 
most post  in  the  battle.  Later  wars,  civil  and  foreign, 
kept  "her  busy  through  several  centuries.  But  the  arts 
of  peace  also  flourished  within  her  walls,  and  Tegea 
must  be  honoured  for  having  erected  one  of  the  most 
distinguished  temples  not  only  of  the  Peloponnesus  but 
of  all  Greece.  This  was  the  Temple  of  Athena  Alea, 
built  by  Scopas  early  in  the  fourth  century.  Only  a 
few  traces  are  left  of  its  mingled  Doric,  Ionic,  and 
Corinthian  columns.  More  important  are  the  frag- 
ments preserved  in  the  National  Museum  at  Athens 
of  sculptures,  perhaps  from  the  hand  of  Scopas,  por- 
traying the  Calydonian  boar-hunt,  the  heroine  of  which 
was  the  Arcadian  maiden  Atalanta.  The  same  Museum 
contains  marble  reliefs  from  Mantinea,  coming  prob- 
ably from  the  time,  if  not  the  workshop,  of  Praxiteles, 
and  very  interesting  sculptures  of  disputed  date  from 
old  Lycosura.  The  Arcadians,  whose  native  gift  was 
music,  did  not  lag  behind  the  rest  of  the  Greeks  in  their 
appreciation  of  the  plastic  arts. 

Pallantium  was  not  important  in  Arcadian  history, 
but  was  reverenced  by  the  Romans  as  the  home  of 
Evander,  whose  enterprizing  colonization  of  the  Pal- 
atine Hill  was  immortalized  by  Virgil.  In  filial  remem- 
brance of  the  adventurer  the  town  was  rebuilt  by  An- 
toninus Pius. 

To  the  north  of  the  great  plain  of  Mantinea  and 
Tegea  lay  another  marshy  plain  containing  three  other 


ARCADIA  365 

important  cities,  Orchomenus,  Pheneus,  and  Stym- 
phalus.  But  the  train  from  Athens  sweeps  far  toward 
the  south,  and  ruined  cities  slip  out  of  mind  among  the 
"winding  valleys  deep-withdrawn  and  ridged  crests  of 
Arcady."  The  real  significance  of  Arcadia  lay  in  its 
landscape  rather  than  in  its  towns.  If  the  country  con- 
tributed few  large  centres  and  few  splendid  deeds  to 
Greek  history,  it  offered  its  mountains  and  streams 
to  be  peopled  by  the  divine  progeny  of  Greek  imagi- 
nation. Pan  himself  was  bom  amid  the  "  wind- tossed 
mountain  trees  of  steep  Cyllene,"  and  from  many  an- 
other Arcadian  hillside  thereafter  his  pipes  reached  the 
ears  of  shepherds  tending  their  flocks  in  upland  pas- 
tures. Artemis,  making  her  pastime  the  chase  of  boars 
and  swift  deer,  fairer  than  the  fair  wild  wood-nymphs 
attending  her,  took  especial  pleasure  in  the  ridges  of 
Erymanthus  and  became  the  reverently  worshipped 
Maiden  of  the  Arcadian  country. 

Later  literature  in  more  than  one  language  created 
a  visionary  Arcadia  of  uninterrupted  pastoral  charm  and 
ease,  a  refuge  for  the  weary,  an  earthly  dream  of  "un- 
laborious  life."  The  fashion  began  in  Greek  itself 
in  the  artificial  period  of  Alexandrian  civilization  when 
men  were  sated  with  city  life  and  began  to  write  cham- 
ber poetry  about  the  beauties  of  nature.  Arcadia,  with 
its  still  unspoiled  hills  and  woods  and  rivers,  became  a 
convenient  setting  for  the  delicate  and  charming  fancies 
of  litterateurs.  But  in  the  real  Arcadia  ''nature"  was 
a  serious  force  to  be  reckoned  with.    The  frowning 


366   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

mountains,  wild  ravines,  and  stretches  of  barren  soil; 
the  gusty  storms  of  winter  and  the  close  heat  of  summer; 
the  difficulties  of  communication  between  village  and 
village,  and  the  remoteness  from  the  great  highway  of 
the  sea,  all  combined  to  make  Arcadian  life  rude  and 
elemental.  Often  the  inhabitants  were  forced  to  a 
hand  to  hand  struggle  with  poverty.  Sometimes  they 
gave  way,  as  Herodotus  indicates  when  he  says  that 
"some  men  from  Arcadia  who  were  in  need  of  a  liveli- 
hood and  wanted  employment"  deserted  to  the  Per- 
sians. But  oftener  the  Arcadians  fought  it  out  at  home, 
tilling  what  soil  they  could,  and  patiently  tending  herds 
and  flocks. 

Such  a  people,  busy  with  the  primitive  needs  of  life, 
found  in  Pan  and  Artemis  saviours  and  graciously 
intimate  friends  rather  than  fanciful  presences  with 
which  to  adorn  pastoral  poetry.  Arcadia  was,  indeed, 
a  very  religious  country,  teeming  both  in  its  cities  and 
on  its  lonelier  hillsides  with  sanctuaries  to  many  of  the 
Olympian  hierarchy,  and  especially  to  a  strange,  elusive 
divinity,  known  as  the  "Mistress."  But  the  divinities 
of  life  in  the  open  most  appealed  to  them.  It  is  indica- 
tive of  an  important  and  not  always  recognized  element 
in  Greek  character  that  some  of  the  most  lovely  fancies 
of  Greek  mythology  should  have  taken  root  where  life 
was  hard.  The  austerity  of  work  and  poverty  was  never 
denied  by  the  clear-eyed  Greeks.  But  instead  of  seek- 
ing, like  the  Celts,  to  escape  from  it  into  dreams  of 
unreal  and  fairer  worlds,  they  balanced  against  it  the 


ARCADIA  367 

palpable  beauty  of  this  world  and  found  much  room 
for  joy  and  laughter. 

Pan's  birth  in  Arcadia  was  third  in  an  interesting 
series  of  events.  The  first  was  the  birth  of  Zeus  himself 
on  Mount  Lycaeus,  the  isolated  mountain  peak  which 
rises  northwest  of  Megalopolis.  It  is,  however,  no  wide- 
spread Hellenic  tradition  which  gave  to  the  king  of  the 
gods  an  Arcadian  birthplace.  Of  all  the  places  that 
claimed  that  honour,  perhaps  Crete  most  impressed  her- 
self upon  the  Greek  world  at  large.  But  the  legend  of 
Arcadia  at  least  resulted  in  bestowing  upon  the  ruler 
of  Olympus  the  well-known  epithet  "Lycaean,"  and  in 
establishing  on  the  summit  of  the  mountain  a  sanctuary 
involving  sacrifices  and  festivals.  Human  sacrifices 
continued  here  astonishingly  long,  and  the  savagery 
of  the  early  Arcadians  left  traces  also  in  tales  of  were- 
wolves roaming  among  the  desert  places  of  the  moun- 
tain. 

A  much  more  engaging  story,  especially  when  it  is 
clothed  in  Ionic  mirth  and  grace,  brought  Zeus  as  a 
lover  to  another  mountain  peak  in  Arcadia  and  pictured 
the  second  divine  birth  in  the  country.  The  Homeric 
Hymn  to  Hermes,  whether  it  is  read  in  the  original  or  in 
Shelley's  inimitable  translation,  is  alive  with  that  witty 
and  audacious  fancy  which  furnished  to  naughty  mor- 
tals delightful  brothers  among  the  gods.  On  Mount 
Cyllene,  towering  above  the  other  mountains  of  Arcadia 
and  bulwarking  the  northeastern  portion  of  the  country, 
dwelt  Maia,  a  fair- tressed  nymph.  Zeus  loved  her  and  — 


368   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

**  She  gave  to  light  a  babe  all  babes  excelling, 
A  schemer  subtle  beyond  all  belief, 
A  shepherd  of  thin  dreams,  a  cow-stealing, 
A  night-watching,  and  door-waylaying  thief." 

The  precocity  of  the  divine  infant  is  the  theme  of  the 
story.  He  is  not  four  days  old  when  he  starts  for  Thes- 
saly  to  steal  the  cattle  of  Apollo.  But  as  he  crosses  the 
threshold  of  his  mother's  cave  he  meets  a  tortoise 
creeping  along  and  feeding  on  the  rich  grass,  a  sight 
which  moves  him  to  laughter  and  gives  him  a  fresh 
idea.  This  is  no  less  than  the  fashioning  of  the  lyre  out 
of  the  tortoise's  shell : — 

"  And  through  the  tortoise's  hard  stony  skin 
At  proper  distances  small  holes  he  made, 
And  fastened  the  cut  stems  of  reeds  within. 

And  with  a  piece  of  leather  overlaid 
The  open  space  and  fixed  the  cubits  in, 
Fitting  the  bridge  to  both,  and  stretched  o'er  all 
Symphonious  chords  of  sheep-gut  rhythmical. 

"When  he  had  wrought  the  lovely  instrument, 
He  tried  the  chords,  and  made  division  meet 

Preluding  with  the  plectrum,  and  there  went 
Up  from  beneath  his  hand  a  tumult  sweet 

Of  mighty  sounds,  and  from  his  lips  he  sent 
A  strain  of  unpremeditated  wit. 

Joyous  and  wild  and  wanton  —  such  you  may 

Hear  among  revellers  on  a  holiday." 

When  he  has  sung  enough  and  is  "  seized  with  a  sud- 
den fancy  for  fresh  meat,"  he  hurries  off  to  the  shad- 
owed hills  of  Pieria  and  steals  fifty  of  the  lowing  kine 
which  are  feeding  there  on  flowering,  unmown  mead- 
ows.   Cunningly  reversing  their  tracks,  and  making 


ARCADIA  369 

for  himself  sandals  of  twigs  and  leaves  that  will  not 
betray  him,  he  drives  the  cattle  to  the  river  Alpheus 
in  Arcadia,  by  whose  banks  they  munch  lotus  and 
marsh-marigold.  He  kills  and  cooks  with  lusty  appe- 
tite, in  the  serene  moonshine,  and  then  at  dawn, 
through  a  silence  broken  by  no  step  of  god  or  man  nor 
bark  of  dog,  he  goes  back  to  the  crests  of  Cyllene  and 
enters  the  cave,  through  the  hole  of  the  bolt, — 

"Like  a  thin  mist  or  an  autumnal  blast." 

Meantime  Apollo,  the  Far-darter,  has  been  tracking 
him  from  the  Thessalian  meadows.  To  the  fragrant 
Cyllenian  hill  he  comes  where  sheep  are  peacefully 
grazing,  and  finds  the  little  thief  wrapped  once  more 
in  swaddling  bands,  feet,  head  and  hands  curled  into  a 
small  space,  tortoise  shell  clasped  under  his  baby  arm. 

"  Latona's  ofifspring,  after  having  sought 
His  herds  in  every  corner,  thus  did  greet 
Great  Hermes:  'Little  cradled  rogue,  declare, 
Of  my  illustrious  heifers,  where  they  are!' 

"To  whom  thus  Hermes  slyly  answered:  'Son 

Of  great  Latona,  what  speech  is  this! 
Why  come  you  here  to  ask  me  what  is  done 

With  the  wild  oxen  which  it  seems  you  miss? 
I  have  not  seen  them,  nor  from  any  one 

Have  heard  a  word  of  the  whole  business; 
If  you  should  promise  an  immense  reward, 
I  could  not  tell  more  than  you  now  have  heard. 

"  An  ox-stealer  should  be  both  tall  and  strong, 
And  I  am  but  a  little  new-born  thing, 
Who  yet,  at  least,  can  think  of  nothing  wrong. 
My  business  is  to  suck,  and  sleep,  and  fling 


370   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

The  cradle-clothes  about  me  all  day  long,  — 

Or,  half  asleep,  hear  my  sweet  mother  sing, 
And  to  be  washed  in  water  clean  and  warm. 
And  hushed  and  kissed  and  kept  secure  from  harm.' " 

Apollo  is  not  deceived,  but  is  forced  to  laughter. 
Finally  they  agree  to  put  the  case  before  Zeus  on 
Olympus.  There,  after  Apollo's  attack,  Hermes  makes 
a  lying  and  witty  defence,  at  which  his  immoral  and 
omnipotent  father  laughs  aloud.  Both  sons  are  sent  off 
to  find  the  kine,  and  on  the  way  the  Cyllenian  shows 
the  Far-darter  his^  tortoise-lyre  and  entrances  him  with 
its  music: — 

"  unconquerable 
Up  from  beneath  his  hand  in  circling  flight 
The  gathering  music  rose  —  and  sweet  as  Love 
The  penetrating  notes  did  live  and  move 

*'  Within  the  heart  of  great  Apollo.   He 
Listened  with  all  his  soul  and  laughed  for  pleasure." 

Hermes  suggests  an  exchange,  promising  the  tortoise 
shell  to  Apollo,  if  he  may  have  in  return  the  glitterinp; 
lash  and  drive  the  herd.  Thus  the  lyre,  invented  in 
Arcadia,  passed  to  the  rightful  lord  of  music  and  to  an 
universal  sovereignty. 

The  two  brothers  became  fast  friends  and  sealed 
their  affection  on  snowy  Olympus  by  mutual  promises. 
The  older  brother  reserves  for  himself  the  awful  gift 
of  prophecy,  but  in  return  for  the  lyre  gives  to  the 
younger  lordship  over  the  twisted-homed  cattle  and 
horses  and  toiling  mules,  over  the  burning  eyes  of  lions, 
and  white-tusked  boars  and  dogs  and  sheep,  and. 


ARCADIA  371 

most  important  of  all,  makes  him  herald  to  lead  the 
dead  to  Hades. 

Almost  imperceptibly,  toward  the  close  of  the  hymn, 
the  two  gods  take  on  something  of  the  stateliness  which 
clothes  them  in  more  serious  poetry.  But  the  rollicking 
infant  and  his  half-angry,  half-amused  victim  must  be 
remembered  to  complete  the  idea  of  a  religion  which 
left  a  definite  place  for  humour.  While  the  gravely 
beautiful  Hermes  which  adorned  the  temple  of  Hera 
at  Olympia  revealed,  in  perfect  marble,  a  serious  and 
noble  conception  of  divinity,  it  may  well  be  that  among 
the  many  wooden  or  stone  statues  of  the  god  which 
stood  in  orchard  closes,  by  cool  wayside  springs,  and 
in  crossways  near  the  gray  seashore,  more  than  one 
recalled  his  lovable  and  mischievous  boyhood.  Cer- 
tainly it  is  tempting  to  imagine  the  infant  trickster  in  the 
Hermes  of  the  Anthology  who  guarded  pleasant  play- 
grounds and  to  whom  boys  offered  marjoram  and  hya- 
cinth and  fresh  garlands  of  violets. 

Hermes  would  seem  to  have  frequently  returned  t© 
his  early  Arcadian  home,  and  during  one  of  these  visits 
he  fell  in  love  with  the  daughter  of  Dryops,  and  for  her 
sweet  sake  became  thrall  of  a  mortal  man  and  shep- 
herded the  fleecy  sheep.  The  fruit  of  his  union  with  the 
shepherd's  daughter  was  Pan,  and  another  Homeric 
hymn  describes  his  birth :  — 

■and  she  in  the  palace 
Brought  forth  a  son  that  was  dear  unto  Hermes  but  strange  to  her 

seeing, 
Goat-footed,  two-horned,  noise-loving,  taking  his  pleasure  in  laughter. 


372   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Fleeing  she  darted  away  and  her  man-child  the  mother  abandoned 

For  that  she  feared  at  the  sight  of  his  visage  unlovely,  full-bearded. 

Forthwith,  however,  the  luck-bringer,  Hermes,  accepted  the  infant. 

Took  him  and  held  in  his  hand  and  the  god  had  delight  without 
measure. 

Lightly  he  went  with  the  boy  to  the  homes  of  the  gods  ever-living, 

Wrapping  him  well  in  the  skins  of  the  wild  hare  that  runs  on  the 
mountains, 

There  took  his  seat  near  to  Zeus  and  the  others,  the  gods  ever-living, 

Showed  them  the  boy  as  his  own  and  they  in  their  hearts  were  de- 
lighted, 

All  the  immortals,  but  chiefly  the  revelling  god,  Dionysus. 

Pan  then  they  called  him  because  to  the  Pantheon  all  he  gave  joy- 
ance. 

Such  was  the  pleasant  d6but  of  the  god  who  was  to 
make  glad  the  hearts  of  men  also,  bringing  laughter 
into  a  world  of  tears,  and  inspiring  amid  the  difficulties 
and  the  ennui  of  civilization  a  wholesome  passion  for 
life  in  the  open  air.  Lord  was  he  of  every  snowy  crest 
and  mountain  peak  and  rocky  path.  Soft  meadows 
where  crocuses  and  fragrant  hyacinths  nestled  in  the 
grass  knew  his  presence.  By  still  pools  within  the  green 
woods  he  would  sit  contentedly,  or  lofty  crags  would 
tempt  his  lively  feet  to  adventurous  climbing.  Over  the 
high  white  hills  he  would  range  in  the  pursuit  of  wild 
beasts.  And  in  the  evening  he  would  sit  on  some  jutting 
rock  or  by  the  dusky  water  of  a  wayside  spring  and  play 
on  his  reeds  such  melodies  of  honeyed  sweetness  as 
even  the  nightingale's  spring  song  could  not  surpass. 
With  him  the  mountain  nymphs,  the  shrill  singers, 
went  wandering  with  light  feet,  and  Echo  moaned  along 
the  mountain  crest.   Many  a  lonely  shepherd  among 


ARCADIA  373 

the  hills  or  tired  husbandman  in  the  meadows  must 
have  desired  to  keep  the  god  within  his  hearing.  A 
broken  fragment  in  the  Greek  Anthology,  embedded 
among  frigid  Byzantine  conceits,  but  springing  one 
knows  not  out  of  what  fresher  age,  seems  instinct  with 
such  prayers  as  theirs :  — 

With  lips  along  thy  reed  pipe  straying, 

Dear  Pan,  abide, 
For  in  the  sunny  uplands  playing 

Doth  Echo  hide. 

Although  Pan  dwelt  all  over  Hellas,  his  Arcadian 
birth  was  not  disputed,  and  more  than  one  Arcadian 
mountain  was  especially  distinguished  by  his  presence. 
Among  the  Nomian  hills,  to  the  south  of  Lycaeus,  he 
invented  the  music  of  his  pipes.  Mount  Maenalus,  near 
Tripolis,  he  often  visited,  and  on  Mount  Parthenius 
he  requested  recognition  at  Athens.  Over  this  moun- 
tain, named  for  virginal  Artemis,  ran  one  of  the  regular 
passes  from  the  Argolis  into  Arcadia,  a  route  followed 
to-day  by  the  train  from  iVthens  to  TripoUs.  The  swift 
Athenian  courier  was  passing  this  way  when  he  was 
delayed  by  the  god. 

In  the  northwestern  corner  of  Arcadia,  skirting 
Achaea  and  Elis,  rises  another  well-known  mountain, 
Erymanthus,  the  favourite  hunting  ground  of  Artemis, 
who  as  Leader,  Saviour,  and  Fairest  received  countless 
shrines  from  the  Arcadians.  The  southern  and  lower 
continuation  of  Mount  Erymanthus  was  known  as 
Mount  Pholoe,  to  which,  as  we  know  from  the  "Ana- 


374   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

basis,"  Xenophon  and  his  sons  and  their  guests  used 
to  come  from  Elis  for  the  pleasures  of  the  chase.  Its 
beautiful  woodlands  were  fabled  to  be  one  of  the  homes 
of  the  Centaurs,  whose  strange  dual  nature  linked  the 
world  of  men  to  the  world  of  beasts.  Heracles  was 
entertained  by  them  when,  as  one  of  his  labours, 
he  came  to  hunt  the  wild  boar  in  the  Erymanthian 
thickets. 

The  forests  which  spread  over  the  plains  and  dark- 
ened the  hills  of  Arcadia  were  filled  with  wild  boars 
and  bears  and  deer.  The  bear  especially  gave  rise 
to  many  legends.  The  Great  Bear  in  the  heavens  was 
once  an  Arcadian  maiden,  Callisto,  whom  jealous 
Hera  turned  into  a  bear  and  whom  Artemis,  as  a  favour 
to  her,  shot  down.  But  Zeus  retransformed  the  maiden 
into  shining  stars,  the  guides  of  mariners  before  and 
since  the  night  when  Odysseus  "kept  looking  ever  at 
the  Pleiades  and  at  Bootes  setting  slow  and  at  the  Bear, 
by  surname  called  the  Wain."  Callisto's  son  was  Areas, 
or  Bear,  and  he  first  taught  the  forest  dwellers,  in  the 
country  that  was  to  inherit  his  name,  how  to  raise  corn 
and  bake  bread.  The  great  oak  woods  of  Arcadia  were 
responsible  for  the  epithet  "acorn-eating,"  which  the 
riddle-loving  priestess  of  Delphi  often  applied  to  the 
inhabitants.  In  the  time  of  Pausanias  the  Arcadian 
forests  were  still  conspicuous  in  all  parts  of  the  country. 
Driven  gradually  from  the  plain  to  the  mountains  they 
are  even  there  at  last  yielding  to  decay. 

But  the  waters  of  Arcadia  are  as  unchanged  as  the 


ARCADIA  375 

hills.  Both  the  Alpheus  and  the  Eurotas  rise  within  its 
borders,  the  former  turning  westward,  as  of  old,  to  its 
haunts  at  Olympia,  the  latter  winding  to  the  south  to 
delight  a  new  Sparta  with  its  gleaming  water  and  ripple- 
washed  reeds.  And  the  Ladon,  the  northern  branch  of 
the  Alpheus,  flows  on  with  the  impetuous  charm  and 
beautiful  colour  which  gave  it  the  reputation  of  being 
the  loveliest  river  in  Greece.  From  out  of  the  range  of 
the  Erymanthian  hills  springs  the  river  Erymanthus, 
which  was  especially  sacred  to  Pan,  as  if  its  reeds  above 
all  others  could  be  shaped  into  tuneful  pipes.  In  the 
river  Gortys  the  nymphs  washed  the  new-bom  Zeus. 
And  by  the  banks  of  the  Aroanius,  which  flows  down  a 
northern  valley  to  join  the  Ladon,  Pausanias,  in  envi- 
able leisure,  awaited  Arcadian  music.  "Amongst  the 
fish  in  the  Aroanius,"  he  tells  us,  "are  the  so-called 
spotted  fish.  They  say  that  these  spotted  fish  sing  like 
a  thrush.  I  saw  them  after  they  had  been  caught,  but 
I  did  not  hear  them  utter  a  sound,  though  I  tarried  by 
the  river  till  sunset,  when  they  were  said  to  sing  most." 
A  group  of  renowned  Arcadian  waters  may  be 
reached  in  one  northward  excursion  of  three  days  from 
Tripolis.  The  first  of  these  is  the  Lake  of  Pheneus,  as 
famous  for  its  strangeness  as  for  its  loveliness.  It  is  so 
surrounded  by  hills  that  no  stream  can  escape  from  it 
above  ground,  and  the  water  issues  only  by  two  kata- 
vothras.  The  condition  of  these  subterranean  channels 
determines  whether  the  great  mountain  basin  of  the 
Pheneus  is  a  fertile  plain  or  a  broad  lake.  In  ancient 


376   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

times  and  in  our  own  the  changes  have  succeeded  each 
other  with  the  fascination  of  mystery.  Pausanias  found 
a  plain,  and  knew  the  lake  only  by  tradition.  From  his 
day  until  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  there 
were  no  records.  But  with  the  ensuing  careful  descrip- 
tions of  geographers  and  travellers  come  baffling  alter- 
nations of  a  "swampy  plain  covered  with  fields  of 
wheat  or  barley"  and  a  "wide  expanse  of  still  water 
deep  among  the  hills,  reflecting  black  pine  woods,  gray 
crags,  and  sky  now  crimson  with  sunset." 

To  the  east  of  Pheneus  and  separated  from  it  only 
by  a  mountain  ridge  the  Lake  of  Stymphalus  is  sunk 
in  placid  beauty  within  towering  hills.  It  was  the  scene 
of  the  fifth  labour  of  Heracles,  who  killed  the  mon- 
strous man-eating  birds  that  haunted  it.  They  typified, 
probably,  the  pestilence  which  would  arise  whenever 
the  underground  channel  that  served  as  an  outlet  for 
the  lake  became  stopped.  Heracles  was  the  master- 
engineer  of  mythological  times.  Later  engineers  also 
experimented  with  the  water  which  flows  into  the  Stym- 
phalian  Lake  from  the  surrounding  mountains  and 
especially  from  Cyllene.  Its  purity  and  abundance  led 
Hadrian  to  have  a  supply  of  it  carried  by  an  aqueduct 
to  Corinth.  And  to-day  the  Athenians  are  contemplat- 
ing importing  it  into  their  arid  city. 

From  the  prosperous  village  of  Solos  vigorous  and 
patient  pedestrians  may  reach  the  most  famous  of  all 
the  waters  of  Arcadia,  and  the  most  characteristic  also 
of  a  country  in  which  gentle  charms,  however  real,  are 


ARCADIA  377 

always  subsidiary  to  a  primitive  wildness.  These 
waters  are  the  Falls  of  the  Styx,  as  familiar  in  English 
as  in  Greek  literature.  They  descend  over  a  perpen- 
dicular cliff  amid  scenery  which  some  consider  grander 
and  more  imposing  than  that  at  Delphi.  The  surround- 
ings so  impressed  themselves  on  the  sensitive  Greek 
imagination  that  from  the  time  of  Homer  the  Styx  was 
one  of  the  dread  rivers  of  death  and  the  lower  world,  fit 
companion-piece  to  nether  darkness  and  the  monstrous 
hound  of  hell,  fit  invocation  even  for  gods  when  on  their 
oath.  "  Let  earth  be  w^itness  unto  this  and  heaven  broad 
and  yon  down-flowing  water  of  the  Styx,  which  is  the 
oath  the  greatest  and  most  terrible  among  the  blessed 
gods,''  the  immortals,  from  Zeus  to  Calypso,  are  ever 
exclaiming.  Hesiod  contributed  the  fancy  that  Iris, 
in  a  vessel  of  gold,  brought  water  from  the  Styx  to 
Olympus,  so  that  the  gods  might  swear  by  its  material 
presence.  The  spray  of  the  falls  is  said  to  take  on  at 
midday  the  lovely  colors  of  the  rainbow,  which  had  its 
divine  personification  in  the  fair  messenger  of  the  gods. 
And  it  has  also  been  pointed  out  that  Hesiod,  in  addi- 
tion to  describing  accurately  the  Styx  as  trickling  down 
from  a  high  and  steep  rock,  by  a  fine  figure  suggests 
a  view  in  winter  when  huge  icicles  form  over  the  cliff 
and  the  clouds  settle  down  so  closely  upon  its  summit 
that  the  water  looks  as  if  it  were  descending  straight 
from  the  sky.  The  Styx,  he  says,  dwelt  in  "glorious 
chambers,  vaulted  with  long  rocks,  and  round  about  a 
colonnade  of  silver  pillars  reared  against  the  sky."  To 


378   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

him  also  as  to  Homer  the  dweller  in  this  icicled  palace 
was  "terrible,  hated  by  all  the  immortals." 

The  traveller  who  must  sacrifice  the  lakes  and  rivers 
of  Arcadia  to  seeing  the  temple  of  Apollo  comes  directly 
by  train  from  Athens  to  Megalopolis  in  the  great  south- 
western plain.  Here  he  is  detained  only  by  a  fourth 
century  theatre  and  other  more  fragmentary  remains 
of  the  ancient  city  before  turning  northward  by  car- 
riage or  horse. 

If  he  is  obliged  to  ride  for  several  hours  and  meet  a 
carriage  at  Karytsena,  the  grim  guardian  of  the  moun- 
tainous road  to  Andritsena,  where  he  is  to  spend  the 
night,  he  will  have  cause  to  be  thankful  for  an  experi- 
ence that  has  put  him  on  more  familiar  terms  with  rude 
Arcadia,  and  has  made  him  more  sensitive  to  the  change 
from  monotonous  lowland  to  vast,  soHtary  mountains 
and  deep  ravines.  The  town  of  Karytaena  lies  on  the 
slopes  of  one  of  the  low  hills  that  form  the  northern 
boundary  of  the  plain  of  Megalopolis.  Above  it,  on  the 
hill's  summit,  loom  the  ruins  of  an  old  Frankish  castle, 
once  the  seat  of  a  barony  which  contributed  many  a 
romantic  story  to  the  history  of  the  Peloponnesus  in  the 
Middle  Ages.  Rarely  in  Greece  is  the  harmony  of  his- 
torical impression  interrupted.  But  here,  like  highway- 
men to  challenge  intellectual  security,  feudalism  and  the 
mediaeval  world  stalk  out  upon  the  unwary.  The  spec- 
tacle is  unique.  Karytaena  stands  at  the  point  where 
the  fiat  plain  startlingly  breaks  into  almost  terrifying 
mountains.    Mount  Lycaeus  towers  on  the  left,  and  all 


ARCADIA  379 

around  serrated  heights  rise  grandly  above  the  castle, 
without  detracting  from  its  own  defiant  dignity.  Past 
the  foot  of  the  hill  flows,  on  its  way  to  Elis,  the  Alpheus, 
here  spanned  by  a  striking  bridge  of  six  arches,  bearing 
a  Prankish  inscription.  The  ruins  of  the  old  barony 
of  Geoffrey  de  Villehardouin  equal  any  feudal  remains 
in  Europe  in  their  reminiscent  suggestiveness  of  the 
romantic  and  violent  life  of  the  Middle  Ages.  But  even 
while  the  traveller  fears  that  he  will  become  confused 
among  memories  of  the  Frankish  dukes  and  princes  of 
the  Peloponnesus,  of  donjons  and  keeps,  of  chivalry 
and  knighthood,  of  all  the  insignia  and  the  emotions 
and  the  ideals  which  make  the  thirteenth  century  A.  d. 
seem  more  remote  from  us  than  the  fifth  century  b.  c, 
he  finds  himself  restrained  and  pacified.  Whatever 
Greece  lays  her  hands  upon  seems  to  lose  its  ephemeral 
or  unrelated  character  and  to  take  its  place,  individual, 
to  be  sure,  but  tributary  in  an  harmonious  whole.  The 
ruined  mediaeval  castle  fits  into  the  surrounding  land- 
scape as  no  disturbing  factor,  but  rather  as  an  integral 
part  of  what  had  helped  also  to  shape  the  ancient  life 
of  Arcadia  into  its  distinguishing  forms.  The  age  when 
the  autochthonous  Arcadians  were  resisting  the  inroads 
of  Sparta  and  the  age  when  the  Slavic  inhabitants  were 
yielding  to  the  attacks  of  the  irresistible  Franks  seem 
to  have  had  a  common  parentage  in  physical  condi- 
tions. And  the  brawling  stream  of  the  Alpheus  below 
seems  to  make  the  jousts  and  the  romances  of  Geoffrey 
de  Karytena's  court  as  much  their  own  as  were  the 


38o   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

festivals  of  Zeus  and  the  love  affairs  of  Pan  and  the 
nymphs. 

The  mountains  into  which  the  carriage  turns  from 
the  six-arched  bridge  are  threaded  by  a  long  road 
which,  despite  its  smoothness  and  safety,  runs  near 
enough  to  the  tops  of  precipices  and  to  the  sight  of  noisy 
torrents  in  the  gloomy  ravines  below  to  engender  a 
mood  of  Arcadian  wildness.  If  this  mountain  region 
is  reached  in  time,  travellers  will  become  spectators 
of  the  charming  scenes  which  are  enacted  each  evening 
over  the  hills  of  Greece  when  the  bleating  flocks  of 
sheep  and  goats  come  home  to  their  folds.  Sappho  saw 
them  in  hilly  Lesbos :  — 

Hesperus,  all  things  thou  bringest  that  brightness  of  morning  had 

scattered, 
Bringest  the  lamb  and  the  kid,  and  the  child  bringest  home  to  his 

mother. 

Arcadia  is  still  "rich  in  flocks"  and  the  "mother  of 
sheep, "  and  to  meet  and  greet  her  shepherds  as  they 
turn  home  from  the  mountain  pastures  restores  the 
world  of  Greek  poetry.  But  if  Karytaena  is  scarcely 
rounded  before  "the  sun  sets  and  all  the  ways  are 
darkened,"  then  pastoral  idyls  make  way  for  Arcadia's 
magnificent  solitariness.  The  mediaeval  castle  bravely 
lifts  its  head  above  the  lonely  country,  while  red  clouds 
stretch  like  tongues  of  flame  over  the  mountains  and 
the  setting  sun  turns  into  molten  gold.  Suddenly,  per- 
haps, amid  the  awful  silence  of  purple  crags  and  burn- 
ing sky,  one  sign  of  life  asserts  itself.    A  little  kid  is 


ARCADIA  381 

stumbling,  lost  and  dreary,  in  a  patch  of  green  wheat 
which  had  enticed  it  from  its  mother.  Doubtless  before 
the  night  is  over  one  tired  shepherd  who  has  safely 
enfolded  his  ninety  and  nine  will  climb  the  steeps  again 
to  find  the  prodigal. "  But  travellers  must  pass  on  in  the 
effort  to  reach  Andritsena  before  midnight.  The  sky 
pales  and  cools  'into  night,  and  stars  of  singular  bril- 
liance emerge,  using  the  absence  of  the  fair  moon  to 
"show  their  bright  faces  to  men."  As  one  drives  hour 
after  hour  through  the  starlit  solitude,  while  "from 
heaven  breaketh  open  the  ether  infinite,"  all  geograph- 
ical and  temporal  limitations  seem  done  away  with, 
and  modernity  and  antiquity  meet  within  the  heart  of 
nature.  But  finally,  as  the  road  from  time  to  time  curves 
outward,  the  lights  of  human  habitations  begin  to 
twinkle.  Andritsena  lifts  her  little  evening  beacons 
on  a  mountain-side  to  offer  shelter  and  food  to  pil- 
grims of  the  night.  The  village  rivals  Arachova  in  the 
charm  of  its  situation,  with  its  outlook  over  the  verdant 
hills  of  the  Alpheus  valley  to  the  distant  pale  blue  heights 
of  Erymanthus  in  the  north.  Vineyards  and  mountain 
streams  and  trees  add  their  quota.  Those  who  have 
stayed  several  days  in  the  town  in  bright  weather,  or 
who  have  been  snowed  in,  as  travellers  may  easily  be 
as  late  as  April,  report  many  attractions  out  of  doors, 
and  many  hospitable  entertainments  within  the  peasant 
houses.  Even  those  whose  impressions  are  gained  from 
one  night's  lodging  may  forget  physical  hardships  in 
the  discovery  of  a  Greek  inheritance.    A  girl,  reproved 


382   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

for  stroking  the  embroidered  collar  of  a  guest,  says  ex- 
planatorily, "but  it  is  so  pretty,"  even  as  the  old  men 
on  the  wall  at  Troy  said  cf  Helen. 

Beds  of  unyielding  boards  are  exchanged  before  dawn 
for  hard  wooden  saddles.  The  temple  of  Bassae  lies 
two  hours  away,  and  those  who  wish  to  see  it  without 
undue  haste  and  yet  return  to  Megalopolis  before  night- 
fall must  begin  their  ride  while  the  stars  are  still  alight. 

Bassae,  or  The  Glens,  should  be  thought  of  in  connec- 
tion with  Phigalia,  although  probably  only  those  who 
take  the  long  horseback  ride  to  or  from  Olympia  will 
see  the  remains  of  this  ancient  city,  which,  measuring 
by  the  time  involved,  lies  as  far  beyond  Bassse  as  Bas- 
sae is  beyond  Andritsena.  The  surrounding  country 
fell  within  its  territory,  but  the  city  itself  stood  on  "high 
and  mostly  precipitous  ground,"  bounded  on  the  south 
by  the  deep  gorge  of  the  winding  Neda,  and  partially 
encircled  on  the  other  sides  by  high  mountains.  Here 
where  the  air  was  invigorating  and  all  healthful  con- 
ditions prevailed  it  was  natural  that  Apollo  should  be 
worshipped  as  the  Succourer  (Epikourios).  In  the  fifth 
century  the  Phigalians  were  so  impressed  by  reports 
of  the  new  Parthenon  in  Athens  that  they  determined 
to  erect  by  popular  subscriptions  a  new  temple  to  their 
chief  divinity  and  to  ask  Ictinus,  the  Parthenon's  archi- 
tect, to  build  it  for  them.  Bassae,  where  already  a  more 
primitive  shrine  existed,  was  the  place  chosen,  and 
thither  from  Andritsena  in  the  cool  dawn  modem  pil- 
grims are  taken  by  their  peasant  guides.  In  spite  of  the 


ARCADIA  3^3 

promise  of  the  stars,  perhaps  the  day  breaks  slowly, 
dark  masses  of  clouds  impeding  the  progress  of  the  sun. 
For  an  hour  and  a  half  the  horses  make  their  way  along 
moderate  heights,  scrambling  up  small  hills  and  clat- 
tering noisily  down  very  rocky  defiles.  The  waysides, 
in  March,  are  bright  with  irises,  violets,  hyacinths,  and 
white  and  purple  crocuses.  Then  the  wildness  of  the 
country  begins  to  increase,  and  culminates  in  the  stony 
slope  of  a  forbidding  hill.  In  half  an  hour  this  is  scaled 
by  the  horses,  and  becomes  a  mount  of  vision.  In  un- 
usual panoramic  grandeur,  mountains  lift  their  nearer 
or  more  distant  peaks.  On  the  east  are  the  barren  hills 
that  form  the  western  spurs  of  Mount  Lycaeus.  Farther 
to  the  south,  beyond  the  valley  of  the  Neda,  are  the  more 
thickly  wooded  slopes  of  the  Nomian  hills,  and  beyond 
them  are  seen  the  snowy  summits  of  the  range  of  Tay- 
getus.  To  the  north  Erymanthus  and  Cyllene  show 
their  crests.  And  directly  in  front,  far  to  the  south, 
Mount  Ithome,  rising  out  of  the  Messenian  plain, 
proudly  breaks  the  horizon  line.  Nor  is  the  sea  wholly 
wanting,  for  along  the  southwestern  horizon,  as  if  flow- 
ing into  the  sky  itself,  stretches  a  shining  length  of  the 
Ionian  waters. 

Perhaps  from  this  hill  Ictinus  looked  down  upon  the 
place  assigned  to  him  by  the  Phigalians.  Even  then  the 
situation  must  have  seemed  impressively  secluded. 
Now,  certainly,  on  descending  the  easy  slope,  a  mod- 
ern is  almost  overwhelmed,  as  if  by  the  appearance  of 
a  god  laying  claim  to  nature's  secrets,  by  the  sudden 


384   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

sight  of  a  majestic  Doric  peristyle.  The  temple  is  built 
on  a  narrow  plateau  on  the  southern  side  of  a  hill  called 
Cotilius  by  the  ancients.  Ictinus's  first  approach  must 
have  been  from  Phigalia  (where  he  would  have  talked 
with  the  municipal  authorities)  up  the  valley  of  the 
Neda,  over  picturesque  and  well- wooded  hills  and  dales. 
But  he  must  have  studied  the  situation  from  all  possible 
points  of  vantage.  Perhaps  for  him,  too,  some  special 
revelation  came  when  out  of  dark  and  threatening 
clouds  the  sun,  at  last  divinely  swift,  cleft  the  darkness, 
and  he  saw  how  effectively  massive  columns  of  gray 
limestone  would  be  illumined  by  Apollo's  radiant  shafts. 
Probably  the  architect's  taste  and  the  Phigalians' 
desire  united  to  choose  as  the  material  of  the  temple 
the  native  rock  that  could  be  quarried  in  the  neighbour- 
hood. Marble  was  imported  for  the  capitals  of  the 
inner  pillars,  for  the  ceilings  of  the  north  and  south 
porticoes,  for  the  roof  tiles  and  for  the  sculptured  frieze 
which  now  honours  the  British  Museum.  The  columns 
of  the  peristyle  and  the  architrave,  barren  of  adorn- 
ment, are  singularly  noble.  They  look  as  if  they  had 
sprung  from  the  rocks  about  them  and  belonged  more 
to  the  mountains  overshadowing  them  than  to  men. 
Indeed,  for  many  centuries,  men  forgot  the  existence 
of  the  temple.  Pausanias,  in  his  day,  six  hundred  years 
after  its  building,  could  still  describe  it  as  surpassing 
all  the  temples  in  the  Peloponnesus,  save  the  one  at 
Tegea  built  a  hundred  years  later,  for  the  beauty  of 
its  stone  and  the  symmetry  of  its  proportions.  But  in 


ARCADIA  385 

time  earthquakes  and  iconoclasm  wrought  their  deadly 
work,  and  through  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  Renais- 
sance the  remaining  ruins  were  known  only  to  shep- 
herds. The  temple  was  rediscovered  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  but  not  until  the  present  time  were  any  efforts 
made  to  reerect  some  of  the  interior  portions  from 
the  fragments  lying  on  the  ground.  In  the  wake  of  the 
archaeologist  follows  the  tourist,  and  now  any  one  who 
will  may  intrude  upon  Apollo's  long  solitude. 

Unlike  other  temples  erected  to  the  gods,  whom 
^schylus  describes  as  "facing  the  dawn"  and  flashing 
back  to  the  worshippers  from  their  "gleaming  eyes" 
the  sun's  early  rays,  the  temple  at  Bassae  lay  from  north 
to  south  instead  of  from  east  to  west.  But  this  was  due 
only  to  the  character  of  the  situation  and  the  exigencies 
of  the  soil.  Long  before  Ictinus's  day  a  primitive  shrine 
had  existed  facing  the  east  in  the  usual  manner.  And 
the  new  temple  seems  to  have  had  a  special  door  built 
in  its  cella  in  order  that  the  main  statue  of  Apollo,  facing 
the  rising  sun,  might  still  be  approached  from  the  side 
of  dawn.  The  old  statue,  like  the  old  shrine,  was  sup- 
planted by  a  finer  one.  Later  the  great  bronze  Apollo 
was  sent  to  adorn  Megalopolis.  But  when  Ictinus  lived 
it  may  well  have  formed  the  centre  of  his  noble  archi- 
tectural design,  an  incarnation  of  the  ideal  of  physical 
and  of  spiritual  wholeness  realized  through  beauty. 

One  further  fact  about  the  Temple  in  the  Glens  has 
been  emphasized  by  the  great  topographer  Leake; 
"That  which  forms,  on  reflection,  the  most  striking 


386   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

circumstance  of  all  is  the  nature  of  the  surrounding 
country,  capable  of  producing  little  else  than  pasture 
for  cattle  and  offering  no  conveniences  for  the  display  of 
commercial  industry  either  by  sea  or  land.  If  it  excites 
our  astonishment  that  the  inhabitants  of  such  a  district 
should  have  had  the  refinement  to  delight  in  works 
of  this  kind,  it  is  still  more  wonderful  that  they  should 
have  had  the  means  to  execute  them.  This  can  only 
be  accounted  for  by  what  Horace  says  of  the  early 
Romans : — 

*  Privatus  illis  census  erat  brevis, 
Commune  magnum.' 

This  is  the  true  secret  of  national  power,  which  cannot 
be  equally  effective  in  an  age  of  selfish  luxury." 

But  it  must  also  be  pointed  out  that  although  the 
Phigalians  had  taste  and  patriotism,  no  architect  or 
artist  rose  among  them  to  shape  their  stone.  Ictinus 
and  his  fellow  artists  must  come  from  Athens  worthily 
to  incarnate  their  desires.  So  a  generation  earlier  they 
had  been  obliged  to  persuade  Onatas,  the  master  of  the 
iEginetan  school  of  sculpture,  to  carve  for  them  a 
statue  of  Demeter.  Nor  were  the  Phigalians  less  skilled 
than  other  Arcadians.  Scopas  had  to  come  from  Paros 
to  build  the  temple  to  Athena  at  Tegea.  And  it  was 
foreign  poets  who  turned  the  legends  of  Cyllenian 
Hermes  and  Pan  into  literature,  and  later  enshrined 
in  pastoral  verse  the  tossing  mountain  forests  and  the 
cool  rivers  of  Arcady. 

This  was  Arcadia's  destiny,  to  offer  the  raw  material 


ARCADIA  387 

of  her  domain  to  the  shaping  hand  of  more  gifted  races. 
Her  greatest  son  was  a  soldier.  Her  own  deeds  were 
deeds  of  blood  and  strife,  her  own  life  was  one  of  work 
and  poverty.  But  because  poets  and  artists  of  other 
blood  wrought  for  her,  her  name  and  her  inherent 
beauty  have  become  forever  domiciled  in  our  own  liter- 
ature, even  in  our  daily  speech  and  commoner  affec- 
tions. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
OLYMPIA 

What  time  the  mid-month  moon  in  golden  car  flamed  back  her 
light  and  lit  the  eye  of  Evening  full,  pure  judgment  of  Great  Games 
did  Heracles  ordain  and  fifth  year's  festival  beside  Alpheus  and  his 
holy  banks.  Pindar. 

WHATEVER  may  be  the  final  decision  of  archae- 
ologists, it  was  natural  for  Pausanias  to 
identify  the  reclining  figures  in  the  east 
gable  of  the  Zeus  temple  at  Olympia  as  the  Alpheus 
and  Cladeus.  The  right  angle  made  by  the  junction 
of  these  rivers  is  in  a  fertile  plain  where  the  Altis, 
the  sacred  enclosure  of  Olympia,  lies  at  the  foot  of  the 
Kronos  hill.  The  Alpheus  river  is  inseparably  con- 
nected in  Greek  literature  with  the  Great  Games.  For 
more  than  one  thousand  summers  quadrennially  the  full 
moon  looked  down  upon  the  myriads  of  visitors  who 
came  from  inland  or  from  island  homes,  from  Tenedos 
in  the  East,  or  from  Sicily  in  the  West.  By  the  Alpheus 
they  encamped  and  sank  into  dreamless  sleep  after 
their  journeyings  or,  it  may  be,  one  or  another,  himself 
a  competitor  or  an  anxious  relative,  would  be  roused 
up  by  nightmares  and  outriders  of  grim  Taraxippus, 
the  Horse  Frightener,  whose  ghost  long  held  in  mort- 
main the  critical  turning  point  in  the  Hippodrome. 


OLYMPIA  389 

When  the  contests  were  ended,  the  same  moon  would 
silver  the  weather-beaten  columns  of  the  old  Her^um 
or  light  up  with  its  benignant  splendour  the  new  and 
stately  shafts  of  the  Zeus  temple,  the  gray-green  sacred 
olive  tree,  the  great  wings  of  the  hovering  Victory,  the 
Parian  marbles  and  the  burnished  bronzes,  or  still  more 
beautiful,  the  naked  ivory  of  the  athletes'  limbs.  And 
then,  crowning  all,  the  epinician  hymn,  newborn  from 
Pindar's  brain,  rose  up  on  the  wings  of  victorious 
music  to  the  very  summit  of  the  Kronos  hill. 

The  athletes  had  not  far  to  journey  from  their  last 
training  place  in  Elis.  The  spectators  had  come  from 
various  directions,  some  from  the  sea-coast,  some,  as 
do  the  majority  of  modern  visitors,  from  Patras  on  the 
coast  of  Achaea.  But  then,  as  now,  the  direct  artery 
from  the  heart  of  Greece  was  the  green  valley  of  the 
Alpheus.  The  river  clamps  Arcadia  and  EHs  together. 
Down  this  valley  year  by  year  in  antiquity  pilgrims 
journeyed  to  see  the  games  and  to  attend  the  great  Fair; 
here  in  modern  times  bands  of  tourists  still  pick  their 
way  up  and  down  over  smooth  roads  and  rocky  torrent- 
beds  and  cross  the  ford  of  the  swollen  stream;  and  a 
projected  railroad,  connecting  (on  paper)  Megalopolis 
and  Olympia,  also  follows  the  general  course  of  the 
Alpheus.  The  river  has  two  main  sources.  Its  northern 
branch,  the  Ladon,  draws  its  water  from  the  rugged 
mountains  of  northern  Arcadia.  The  other  branch  comes 
flowing  down  from  the  northwest  end  of  Taygetus, 
curves   through   the   plain   of   Megalopolis,    plunges 


390   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

through  the  ravine  of  Karytaena  and  joins  the  Ladon 
near  the  western  border  of  Arcadia,  and  the  two  united 
make  their  way  through  Elis  to  the  Ionian  sea.  Nor 
even  there  is  its  end.  In  pursuit  of  the  fountain 
nymph,  Arethusa,  Alpheus  must  needs  reach  Sicily. 
To  the  Greeks  the  Mediterranean  was  their  highway, 
not  the  "salt,  estranging  sea."  According  to  Lucian,  as 
Alpheus  enters  the  sea,  Poseidon,  brimming  over  with 
curiosity,  stops  him  and  enquires:  "What's  this,  Al- 
pheus ?  You  alone  of  all  rivers  don't  go  in  for  dissipa- 
tion, and  you  keep  your  waters  fresh  and  free  from 
brine  as  you  hurry  on?" 

(Alpheus)  "It's  a  love  affair,  Poseidon,  so  don't 
cross- question  me.  You've  been  in  love  yourself  and 
often  too!" 

The  sea-god  on  learning  of  the  object  of  Alpheus's 
passion  expresses  much  approval.  But  Alpheus  cuts 
him  short :  "  I  am  pressed  with  engagements.  You  de- 
tain me,  Poseidon,  by  your  superfluous  questions!" 

(Poseidon)  "You're  right.  Be  off  to  your  Beloved. 
Rise  up  from  the  water,  mingle  with  the  fountain  and 
be  ye  twain  one  stream." 

Lucian' s  contemporary  Pausanias  is  troubled  with  no 
doubts,  and  solemnly  reaffirms  the  wedlock  of  Alpheus 
and  Arethusa,  although  the  more  sceptical  Strabo  in 
the  preceding  century  had  naively  argued  against  the 
credibility  of  the  popular  belief  that  a  cup  thrown  into 
the  Alpheus  reappears  in  the  fountain  at  Syracuse. 
Antigonus  Carystus  had  stoutly  maintained  that  "when 


OLYMPIA  391 

the  entrails  of  the  victims  are  thrown  into  the  Alpheus 
the  waters  of  Arethusa  in  Sicily  grow  turbid." 

Be  all  that  as  it  may,  Alpheus  mingling  his  waters 
with  the  Sicilian  fountain  is  typical  of  the  stream  of 
competitors  who  were  constantly  returning  from  the 
Olympic  games  to  Magna  Graecia.  Of  Pindar's  four- 
teen Olympic  odes  nine  were  written  for  Sicilian  or 
Italian  victors.  In  general  one  of  the  most  noteworthy 
facts  in  the  history  of  the  games  is  the  widespread  dis- 
tribution of  the  clientele.  The  competitors  and  visitors 
converging  from  Greece ;  the  innumerable  votive  offer- 
ings here  dedicated;  the  common  motives  of  religion 
here  illustrated  in  art  and  literature  generated  a  centri- 
petal national  spirit  that  could  retard  though  not  de- 
stroy the  centrifugal  individualism  of  the  Greeks. 

The  only  fact  more  conspicuous  than  the  wide  terri- 
tory represented  is  the  longevity  of  the  Olympic  cele- 
brations. The  Great  Games  were  continued  both  under 
Macedonian  rule  and  even  for  long  years  after  the 
Hellenic  world,  east  and  west,  subjugated,  dismem- 
bered, and  rearranged  like  parti-colored  bits  of  glass 
in  a  kaleidoscope,  had  fallen  into  place  in  the  imperial 
pattern  of  the  great  Roman  mosaic.  The  splendid  Phi- 
lippeum  at  Olympia  was  witness  to  the  eagerness  with 
which  Philip  and  Alexander  made  good  their  legiti- 
mate claim  to  Hellenic  blood.  Roman  emperors,  like 
Tiberius  and  Nero,  by  their  very  presence,  however 
arrogant,  gave  one  more  sign  of  the  Greeks'  intellectual 
suzerainty  over  their  captors. 


392   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Although  Elis,  even  in  October  after  the  long  hot 
summer,  presents  a  contrast  to  the  burnt  plains  and 
hills  about  Athens,  yet  the  traveller  will  be  best  re- 
warded if  he  comes  to  Olympia  by  the  end  of  Feb- 
ruary or  early  in  March.  If  he  comes  from  Patras  and 
will  penetrate  a  little  inland  from  the  railroad  near  the 
river  Stimana,  the  ancient  Larisos,  he  will  find  him- 
self in  the  midst  of  beautiful  w^oodland  scenery.  The 
whole  country,  with  its  fine  oak  trees,  reminded  the 
traveller  Mure  of  "  the  wilder  parts  of  Windsor  Park." 
Even  at  the  little  stations  are  seen  shepherds  in  their 
shaggy  coats,  with  conversation-beads  and  staffs  and 
flocks  of  sheep.  At  Olympia  itself  the  new  green  of  the 
trees  and  grass,  the  pink  of  the  almond  blossoms  on 
the  banks  of  the  Alpheus,  and  all  the  awakening  of  the 
early  spring  help  to  dissipate  the  melancholy  that  is 
wont  to  invade  the  mind  in  a  lonely  site  amidst  ruins 
which  record  some  by-gone  efflorescence  of  human 
activity.  This  Olympian  plain,  through  which  the 
Alpheus  sweeps  down  to  the  sea  between  fields  and 
vineyards,  offered  ample  room  for  the  vast  throngs  of 
visitors.  There  was  no  city  accommodation.  They 
must  encamp  in  the  open  as  they  do  to-day  at  many  a 
modern  festival.  But  the  smiling  valley  was  a  fit  place 
to  worship  Zeus,  the  god  of  the  open  sky.  Xenophon, 
who  lived  on  his  estate  just  beyond  the  hills  which 
bound  the  plain  to  the  south,  tells  in  the  ''Anabasis" 
how  the  returning  Greeks,  when  they  sighted  the  Eux- 
ine  sea  from  the  mountain  ridge,  held  impromptu  games 


OLYMPIA  393 

and  races  on  an  impossible  slope  where  men  and  horses 
tumbled  amidst  the  jeers  of  the  spectators.  The  plain 
of  the  Alpheus  was  perfectly  adapted  both  for  the  games 
and  all  that  the  festival  implied.  It  is  easy  to  see  how 
contests  would  become  popular  here  before  they  were 
instituted  on  the  narrow  ledges  of  Parnassus  at  Delphi. 

For  the  Greeks  of  the  classical  period  the  mythical 
founding  of  the  games  in  prehistoric  times  threw  back 
the  first  contests  into  a  conveniently  dim  perspective. 
In  this  penumbra  of  Greek  mythology  like-named 
replicas  of  gods,  heroes,  or  mortals  now  blend  together, 
now  assert  their  independence.  The  Cretan  Heracles 
is  said  to  have  brought  the  infant  Zeus  from  Mount 
Ida  to  the  Kronos  hill  in  the  Golden  Age  and  to  have 
first  instituted  the  games.  Then  again  it  is  the  national 
hero  Heracles,  himself  Zeus-descended,  who  cleanses 
the  stables  of  King  Augeas  in  Elis  with  the  help  of  the 
Alpheus  and  the  Cladeus  river-gods,  and  thereupon 
founds  the  games. 

To  the  reverent  Greek  his  mythology  was  not  an 
entertaining  treasury  of  mere  fairy  tales.  The  stories 
of  two  contests  were  selected  with  intent  as  the  theme 
for  the  sculptures  most  prominent  of  all  in  the  sacred 
enclosure.  In  the  east  gable  of  the  Zeus  temple  was 
represented  Hippodameia,  the  daughter  of  (Enomaus. 
Her  father  has  already  in  his  swift  chariot  overtaken 
and  slain  many  suitors  who  had  failed  to  outspeed  him 
while  contending  for  his  daughter's  hand.  At  the  side 
of  Hippodameia  stands  Pelops  just  starting  to  win,  by 


394   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

the  favour  of  Zeus  and  the  treachery  of  OEnomaus's 
charioteer,  a  prehistoric  Olympic  victory. 

In  the  west  gable  was  the  contest  between  the  Lapiths 
and  the  Centaurs.  The  latter  are  represented  as  in- 
vading the  festival  at  the  marriage  of  another  Hippo- 
dameia  to  Pirithous,  whose  friend  and  ally  of  old  was 
the  hero,  Theseus  of  Athens.  The  brute  Centaurs  pre- 
sumably symbolize  the  barbaric  power  of  the  Persians, 
whose  defeat  by  Athens  and  her  allies  was  here  fittingly 
celebrated  as  another  Olympic  victory.  This  may  be 
taken  as  the  official  expression,  at  the  supreme  moment 
of  Greek  history,  of  one  of  the  wider  meanings  of  the 
games. 

The  first  view  of  the  excavations  at  Olympia  is  dis- 
appointing and  bewildering  to  the  amateur  visitor,  and 
a  mere  topographical  survey  hopelessly  confounds  his- 
tory. Even  a  superficial  appreciation  of  the  ruins  pre- 
supposes a  more  special  preparation  than  is  necessary, 
for  example,  at  Pompeii.  At  Olympia,  although  it,  too, 
was  overwhelmed,  being  destroyed  by  earthquakes  and 
buried  in  soft  earth  by  the  loyal  river-gods,  the  imag- 
ination must  concern  itself  with  various  epochs:  the 
prehistoric ;  the  period  from  the  first  Olympiad  to  the 
Persian  wars ;  the  age  of  Pericles ;  the  following  century; 
the  Macedonian  period;  and,  finally,  that  of  the  Greek 
world  under  Roman  sway. 

All  the  buildings  for  the  athletes  and  for  the  contests 
—  the  Palaestra,  the  Gymnasium,  the  Stadium,  and  the 
Hippodrome  —  lay  outside  of   the  sacred  enclosure, 


OLYMPIA  395 

while  the  Altis  itself  was  reserved  for  the  real  purpose 
of  this  consecrated  spot,  the  worship  of  Zeus,  under  all 
his  manifold  activities,  and  of  the  other  gods  who 
helped  to  round  out  and  to  satisfy  the  aspirations,  the 
hopes,  and  fears  of  the  Greek  heart  that  was  "in  all 
things  very  religious."  To  cover  all  possible  oversights 
there  was  at  Olympia,  as  by  the  Areopagus  of  St.  Paul's 
day,  or  at  Phalerum,  an  altar  to  Unknown  Gods.  Just 
as  the  drama  was  a  religious  spectacle,  so  the  games 
were  conducted  by  the  real  Greek  in  the  same  spirit. 
The  athletes  went  forth  from  the  Altis  to  the  contest, 
the  victors  reentered  it  to  receive  the  olive  crown,  and 
within  it  their  statues  and  offerings  were  set  up  in  the 
immediate  presence  of  the  gods. 

In  the  Altis  the  ancient  Heraeum,  with  its  indications 
of  an  earlier  wooden  structure,  carries  back  the  thought 
far  beyond  the  first  Olympiad  in  the  eighth  century 
B.  c.  The  new  god  Zeus  was  just  emerging  from  the 
tutelage  of  his  predecessor  on  the  Kronos  hill  above. 
In  this  early  age  he  seems  hardly  more  than  a  Prince 
Consort  by  the  side  of  Hera  who,  in  Pindar's  sixth 
Olympian,  is  invoked  as  the  ''Maiden"  or  ever  Zeus 
had  led  her  to  the  bridal  chamber.  One  of  the  least 
obtrusive  ruins  in  the  Altis  marks  the  site  near  the 
Heraeum  of  the  great  altar  of  Zeus  or,  possibly,  the  com- 
mon shrine  of  Zeus 'and  Hera.  Annually  the  priests 
kneaded  with  water  from  the  Alpheus  the  ashes  of  the 
thighs  of  victims  offered,  as  in  the  Iliad,  to  the  god,  and 
plastered  a  layer  upon  this  primitive  altar.    Only  the 


396   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

water  of  the  Alpheus  was  acceptable  to  the  god  in  pre- 
paring this  clay,  and  thus  year  by  year  was  cemented 
the  union  between  the  visible  and  the  unseen,  the  benefi- 
cent river-god  of  the  land  and  the  Olympian  god  whose 
dome  overarched  the  widespread  land  of  Hellas. 

Approaching  historic  records  we  read  that  Iphitus 
in  793  B.  cor,  by  the  usual  reckoning, in  776  b.  c,  four 
hundred  and  eight  years  after  the  traditional  capture  of 
Troy,  renewed  the  games  which  had  been  discontinued 
for  twenty-eight  Olympiads  after  the  time  of  Pelops  and 
Heracles.  The  Heraeum,  until  recently  known  as  the 
most  ancient  temple  in  Greece,  certainly  existed  at  this 
time,  although  differing  in  material  and  in  contents  from 
the  temple  that  Pausanias  describes.  Both  the  ground 
structure  and  enough  of  the  lower  part  of  the  walls  re- 
main to  enable  the  expert  to  reconstruct  in  imagination 
the  whole  building  up  to  the  gable  upon  which  rested 
the  terra-cotta  acroterion  now  preserved  in  the  Mu- 
seum. At  the  west  end  of  the  cella  we  see  the  base  of 
the  great  statues  of  Hera  and  Zeus.  Suitably  enough, 
while  Zeus  has  disappeared  the  archaic  head  of  Hera 
was  found  and  is  now  in  the  Museum.  And,  prostrate  , 
before  one  of  the  side  niches,  just  where  Pausanias  de- 
scribes it,  was  found  the  Hermes  of  Praxiteles  with  the 
infant  Dionysus  on  his  arm.  This  beautiful  statue  alone 
would  have  repaid  the  cost  of  the  whole  excavation.  It 
imites  the  beauty  of  the  athlete's  body  with  the  Greek 
conception  of  divinity  in  frank,  idealizing  anthropo- 
morphism. 


OLYMPIA  397 

The  catholicity  of  Greek  polytheism  may  be  illus- 
trated by  the  rest  of  the  company  within  the  Heraeum 
as  described  by  Pausanias.  It  was  not  that  every  god 
"  had  his  day,"  like  the  rotation  in  office  of  the  Athenian 
prytanes,  but  there  was  a  precinct  and  a  function  for 
each  and  every  manifestation  of  pulsating  life,  from  the 
humblest  Nereid  to  Olympian  Hera.  "  Known  to  each 
other  are  all  the  immortal  gods, "  as  Homer  says.  They 
were  all  entered  in  their  Almanach  de  Gotha  and  could 
upon  occasion  live  in  harmony,  except  when  some  Eris 
threw  her  apple  of  discord  in  their  midst  or  "golden" 
Aphrodite  struggled  in  the  Council  of  the  Gods  for 
precedence  over  the  mere  bigness  of  the  Colossus  of 
Rhodes.  At  any  rate,  in  Hera's  temple  were  placed 
statues  of  the  Seasons  and  of  Themis,  their  mother,  per- 
sonifying orderly  and  unchanging  Law;  the  five  Hes- 
perides,  stimulating  the  eager  Hellenic  mind  to  reach 
out  after  the  unknown;  Athena,  goddess  in  peace  and 
war;  the  Maid  and  Demeter,  embodying  the  fruitful 
beneficence  of  nature  and  the  mysteries  of  the  unseen ; 
Apollo  and  Artemis,  welcomed  or  feared  by  turns  for 
their  arrows  of  light  or  shafts  of  destruction;  Latona, 
their  mother,  whose  Delian  refuge  was  firmly  moored 
to  every  other  sacred  shrine  in  Greece.  Here  too  was 
Fortune,  who  had  a  not  insignificant  role  in  Greek  as 
in  Roman  life,  and  Dionysus,  god  of  Tragedy  and  of 
Comedy,  was  represented  as  accompanied  by  a  winged 
Victory. 

The  Prytaneum  of  the  Eleans,  trustees  of  the  land 


398   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

and  of  the  games,  was  enclosed  within  the  Altis  at  the 
northwest  corner  of  the  Heraeum.  It  was  built  over  in 
Roman  times,  but  the  Greek  structure  beneath  seems 
to  have  been  of  very  early  date.  Here  were  sung  ancient 
songs  in  the  Doric  dialect,  and  here,  in  the  banquet- 
hall,  the  Olympic  victors  were  feasted. 

Next  in  historic  order  come  the  remains  of  a  row  of 
twelve  treasuries,  ranged  along  close  to  the  Kronos  hill 
from  the  Heraeum  to  the  Stadium  entrance.  They  are 
ascribed  to  the  sixth  century  b.  C.  or,  in  the  case  of  part 
of  the  most  easterly  one,  to  the  beginning  of  the  fifth 
century.  These  little  buildings  are  of  great  architectonic 
and  historic  import.  Half  of  them  were  dedicated  by 
communities  from  over  the  seas;  five  by  Italian  and 
Sicilian  Greeks.  The  fragments  from  the  treasury  of 
Selinus  recall  at  once  the  archaic  temples  and  sculpture 
on  the  shore  of  Sicily  that  faces  Carthage.  The  Syra- 
cusan  Treasury  was  re-named  "Carthaginian"  by  rea- 
son of  spoils,  taken  by  the  Syracusans  from  their  Punic 
enemies  in  the  battle  of  Himera  and  placed  here  to 
unite  at  this  common  shrine  the  victors  of  Salamis  with 
their  brothers  in  the  west. 

In  the  fifth  century  b.  c.  the  flush  of  victory  at 
Salamis  not  only  lit  up  the  Acropolis  at  Athens  but 
spread  to  this  green  valley  in  Elis.  The  great  Zeus 
temple  was  built.  Its  pediments,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  were  adorned  with  sculptured  myths  appealing 
at  once  to  local  pride  and  to  wider  Hellenic  patriotism. 
In  the  eastern  gable  Zeus  stood  upright  as  arbiter  in  the 


OLYMPIA  399 

chariot  contest  of  Pelops;  in  the  western  gable  the 
archaic  yet  majestic  Apollo  appeared  as  the  defender 
against  the  Centaurs,  the  barbarian  invaders.  To  em- 
phasize the  honour  due  to  Athens  there  was  painted 
on  the  throne  within  the  temple  a  representation  of 
Pirithous,  the  bridegroom  of  Hippodameia,  and  his 
friend,  the  Athenian  Theseus.  The  victories  over  the 
Persians  were  again  symbolized  by  the  contest  between 
Theseus  and  the  Amazons  wrought  upon  the  footstool 
of  the  seated  god,  and,  as  if  to  put  the  meaning  beyond 
all  doubt,  here  too  were  Greece  and  Salamis  personi- 
fied, the  latter  holding  in  her  hand  the  figurehead  of 
a  ship.  The  metope  sculptures  represented  the  labours 
of  Heracles  who,  as  founder  of  the  games,  typified  to 
patriot  and  athlete  bodily  powers  and  indomitable  will. 
The  cella  of  the  temple  was  reserved  for  the  great  gold- 
ivory  statue  of  Zeus,  who  was  seated  while  others  stood. 
Phidias  established  his  workshop  by  the  sacred  enclo- 
sure and  wrought.  And  the  result  of  his  handiwork  was 
a  world's  wonder  for  long  centuries.  Into  his  creation 
were  breathed  Homeric  dignity,  Attic  beauty,  and  Hel- 
lenic pride.  Dio  Chrysostom  in  the  first  century  of  the 
Christian  era  could  say  of  it:  "Methinks  that  if  any 
one  who  is  heavy-laden  in  mind,  who  has  drained  the 
cup  of  misfortunes  and  sorrows  in  life,  and  whom  sweet 
sleep  visits  no  more,  were  to  stand  before  this  image, 
he  would  forget  all  the  griefs  and  troubles  that  are  inci- 
dental to  the  life  of  man." 
Time  and  earthquakes  and  plunderers  have  worked 


400   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

almost  utter  ruin.  But  the  ground  plan  of  the  temple 
remains  to  tell  a  detailed  story,  and  some  of  the  great 
shafts  lie  prostrate  where  they  fell.  In  the  Museum  is 
preserved,  more  or  less  complete,  the  m.ajor  part  of  the 
gable  sculptures,  fortunately  including  the  very  noble 
figure  of  Apollo,  and  the  mutilated  but  beautiful  me- 
topes. The  gold-ivory  statue  has  disappeared  long  since. 
It  is  possible  that  it  may  have  been  destroyed  when  the 
temple  was  burnt  in  the  reign  of  Theodosius  II,  but  a 
Byzantine  historian  claims  that  the  statue  was  still 
standing  in  a  palace  at  Constantinople  when  it  was  con- 
sumed by  fire  in  475  a.  d.  In  front  of  the  Zeus  temple 
are  still  to  be  seen  some  blocks  of  the  lofty  triangular 
column  over  which  Paeonius  caused  his  winged  Nike  to 
•hover.  The  statue  itself,  in  large  part  intact,  is  set  up 
in  the  Museum  and  belongs  to  the  more  beautiful  of  our 
inheritances  from  antiquity. 

If  now  we  add,  in  imagination,  the  great  council  hall, 
possibly  lying  southeast  from  the  temple,  and  the  older 
colonnade  bounding  the  east  side  of  the  Altis,  and  if 
we  add  the  pentagonal  Pelopion  and  the  minor  sanc- 
tuaries, and  fill  in  the  forest  of  statues  of  athletes  and 
of  gods,  we  shall  have  the  more  salient  features  of  the 
sacred  enclosure  down  through  the  great  period  imme- 
diately following  the  Persian  wars.  To  the  beginning 
of  the  fourth  century  is  attributed  the  little  temple  of 
the  Mother  of  the  Gods  east  of  the  Heraeum.  Running 
in  a  line  from  this  up  to  the  very  entrance  of  the  Sta- 
dium is  a  long  row  of  pedestals.  Upon  these  stood  the 


OLYMPIA  401 

Zanes,  or  bronze  statues  of  Zeus,  which  were  erected 
from  fines  imposed  upon  offenders  against  the  rules 
of  the  games.  They  stood  where  the  contestants  must 
see  them  just  as  they  passed  from  the  Altis  into  the 
Stadium.  It  is  significant  that  the  first  recorded  serious 
violation  of  athletic  honour  did  not  occur  until  388  b.  c, 
only  a  half  century  before  free  Greece  was  crushed  at 
Chaeronea,  and  that  the  next  occasion  was  in  the  112th 
Olympiad,  six  years  after  Macedonian  rule  was  estab- 
lished. This  second  time  it  was  an  Athenian  who  had 
bribed  his  competitors,  and  the  Athenians,  like  some 
modern  sympathizers  with  athletic  criminals,  were 
shameless  enough  to  press  the  Eleans  to  remit  the  fine. 
But  the  god  at  Delphi  compelled  the  Athenians  to  sub- 
mit. Standing  before  the  Opisthodomus,  the  rear  porch 
of  the  Zeus  temple,  from  which  poet,  historian,  and 
philosopher  were  wont  to  utter  high  words  on  noble 
themes,  the  crowd  may  have  looked  up  at  the  great 
Apollo  with  his  hand  outstretched  and  imagined  him 
dictating  the  inscription  placed,  on  a  similar  occasion, 
upon  the  base  of  one  of  the  Zanes :  "  An  Olympic  vic- 
tory is  to  be  gained  not  by  money  but  by  fleetness  of 
foot  and  strength  of  body." 

Macedon  also  left  its  records.  When  Philip  had  de- 
feated the  Greeks  at  Chaeronea  in  ;^;^8  b.  c,  his  first  care 
was  to  prove  that  he  was  Hellene  and  not  the  barba- 
rian that  Demosthenes  considered  him.  The  Philip- 
peum  was  dedicated,  and  in  it  were  erected  gold-ivory 
statues  of  Philip's  father  Amyntas,  of  Philip,  of  the 


402   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

mother  and  grandmother  of  Alexander,  and  of  Alexan- 
der himself.  Alexander's  right  to  contend  at  the  games 
was  vindicated.  In  this  period  also  was  added  on  the 
eastern  side  of  the  Altis  the  beautiful  Echo  colonnade 
with  its  sevenfold  echo. 

When  Greece  came  under  Roman  rule,  no  longer 
could  free-born  Greeks  boast  of  exclusive  right  to  par- 
ticipate at  Olympia.  Champions  from  all  parts  of  the 
empire,  Tiberius  and  Nero  among  them,  took  part  in 
the  games.  Pausanias  speaks  of  a  statue  of  Augus- 
tus, made  of  amber,  and  a  statue  of  Trajan,  dedicated 
by  the  Greek  nation,  and  also  of  one  of  Hadrian  set 
up  by  the  Achaean  confederacy.  Nero,  who  contended 
both  in  the  Olympic  and  Pythian  games,  dedicated 
four  crowns  in  the  Zeus  temple.  Under  the  Antonines 
the  external  splendour  of  the  Altis  and  the  comfort  of  the 
visiting  throngs  were  enhanced  by  the  public-spirited 
Herodes  Atticus,  a  Greek  from  Marathon  and  the  pre- 
ceptor of  the  emperor  Marcus  Aurelius.  Lucian,  who 
was  repeatedly  at  the  Games,  gives  in  his  "Life's  End 
of  Peregrinus"  a  vivid  picture  of  one  of  the  quadrennial 
celebrations  in  the  time  of  the  Antonines.  In  place  of 
the  deserted  ruins  of  to-day  we  can  see  the  temples, 
statues,  marble  exedra,  the  echo  colonnade,  the  athletes, 
and  the  thronging  crowds  gossiping,  wrangling,  gaping 
after  novelty.  As  the  Cynic  partisan  harangues  the  peo- 
ple from  the  pulpit  of  the  Opisthodomus  we  realize  how 
for  centuries  Greek  life  had  focused  in  these  gatherings. 
The  festival  had  become  a  Greek  Exchange.  Here,  if 


OLYMPIA  403 

we  are  to  believe  Lucian,  Herodotus  first  gave  to  the 
public  his  history,  the  great  epinician  epic  that  recounted 
the  triumphs  of  the  Greek  over  the  barbarian.  Among 
his  audience  would  be  some  whose  brothers  or  fathers 
had  fought  at  Thermopylae,  and  all  would  hear  with 
pride  how  Xerxes  asked :  "  What  are  the  Greeks  do- 
ing?" and  how  he  was  answered:  "They  are  holding 
the  Olympic  games,  seeing  the  athletic  sports  and  the 
chariot  races;"  and  then,  when  Xerxes  was  told  that  the 
prize  was  a  mere  olive  wreath,  how  a  Persian  exclaimed : 
"What  manner  of  men  are  these  who  contend  with  one 
another  not  for  money  but  for  honour!"  Brain  and 
brawn  were  alike  praised  at  Olympia.  The  sophist 
Hippias  was  Elis-bom,  and  the  statue  of  Gorgias  from 
Sicily  was  erected  among  those  of  the  athletes.  And 
here  rhetoricians  from  Gorgias  to  Lucian  delivered 
their  epideictic  speeches;  artists,  painters,  and  musi- 
cians appealed  to  the  eye  or  the  ear;  philosophies  new 
or  old  were  hotly  debated. 

But  no  Roman  patronage  could  galvanize  into  real 
life  the  dying  spirit  of  freedom.  Professionalism  grew 
apace.  Christianity,  established  in  the  eastern  empire, 
extinguished  the  fire  on  the  ancient  altar  of  Zeus.  The 
fitful  return  to  polytheism  under  Julian  the  Apostate 
only  served  to  show  its  decadence,  and  in  393  A.  d. 
the  emperor  Theodosius  finally  suppressed  the  Olympic 
games.  When  the  "truce"  of  the  Olympic  god  no 
longer  interposed  a  defence,  the  Altis  itself  became  a 
Byzantine  fortress  and  the  monuments  were  partially 


404   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

destroyed  to  build  its  walls.  Amongst  the  ruins  of  the 
Palaestra  and  the  Workshop  of  Phidias  can  be  seen 
the  remains  of  a  Byzantine  church.  Earthquakes  in  the 
sixth  century  threw  down  the  Zeus  temple,  and  in  this 
and  the  following  century  the  Cladeus  and  the  Alpheus, 
the  only  gods  who  still  retained  their  power,  united  in 
preserving  under  deep  layers  of  earth  the  mutilated 
monuments  for  a  kindlier  age  to  uncover  and  to  honour. 
After  this  destruction  and  burial,  for  more  than  one 
thousand  years  the  summer  moons  waxed  and  waned 
above  the  desolated  valley  disturbed  only  by  the  hoof- 
beats  of  the  horses  ridden  by  the  vassal  bands  of  the 
Dukes-  of  the  Morea.  Here,  as  elsewhere  in  Greece, 
temples  robbed  of  their  acolytes  and  statues,  no  longer 
symbols  of  a  living  religion,  forgot  the  incense  of  a 
happy  past  and  could  look  forward  to  no  festal  renas- 
cence. Sterling,  in  his  "  Daedalus, "  pictures  these  or- 
phaned children  of  Olympus  in  a  loneliness  only  less 
pathetic  than  their  irksome  imprisonment  within  un- 
sympathetic Museum  walls :  — 

"  Statues,  bend  your  heads  in  sorrow, 
Ye  that  glance  'mid  ruins  old, 
That  know  not  a  past  nor  expect  a  morrow, 
On  many  a  moonlit  Grecian  wold." 

In  1875  the  German  government  subsidized  the  sys- 
tematic excavations  that  restored  to  the  modem  world 
some  of  its  most  valued  treasures  and  laid  bare  the 
greater  part  of  the  ruined  Altis,  the  adjacent  buildings 
and  the  entrance  to  the  Stadium. 


OLYMPIA  405 

The  remains  excavated  outside  the  Altis  bring  us  to 
the  contests  themselves.  Close  to  the  western  wall 
of  the  Altis  were  the  elaborate  Palaestra  and  Gymna- 
sium, where  the  athletes  could  keep  themselves  in  form 
for  the  contests.  From  the  northeastern  corner  of 
the  sacred  enclosure  leads  the  covered  way  into  the 
Stadium,  which  has  been  only  partially  excavated  at 
the  two  ends.  To  the  south,  or  possibly  east,  of  the  Sta- 
dium lay  the  Hippodrome  by  the  bank  of  the  Alpheus. 
Frazer,  contrary  to  the  usual  belief,  thinks  it  possible 
that  it  may  still  be  intact  north  of  the  new  bed  of  the 
river.  From  Pausanias,  who  fortunately  described  the 
Hippodrome  minutely,  we  can  in  imagination  recon- 
struct the  scene:  the  rising  tiers  of  spectators;  the 
bronze  turning-posts,  on  which  respectively  stood  stat- 
ues of  Pelops  and  of  Hippodameia,  at  each  end  of  the 
course  around  which  the  chariots  drove  twelve  times; 
the  umpires  at  the  goal ;  the  chariots  waiting  ready  for 
the  signal  given  at  the  hoisting  of  the  bronze  eagle  and 
the  dropping  of  the  dolphin.  For  a  typical  chariot  race 
of  the  best  period  we  may  turn  to  the  "Electra"  of 
Sophocles,  although  the  scene  of  the  race  is  laid  at 
Delphi,  not  at  Olympia.  Sophocles,  who  himself  em- 
bodied the  Greek  perfection  of  manly  beauty,  knew 
how  to  give  essential  details  to  critical  hearers.  The 
danger  involved  and  the  skill  required  on  the  race 
track  made  the  owner  of  the  victorious  team,  provided 
he  was  his  own  charioteer,  a  worthy  recipient  of  Olym- 
pic honours.  There  are  ten  contestants  in  all,  two  of 


4o6   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

them  Libyan  Greeks.  They  draw  lots  for  the  assign- 
ment of  inner  and  outer  tracks  and  take  their  stations 
at  command  of  the  judges,  and  then  — 

At  the  bronze  trumpet's  signal  forth  they  shot :  the  men 

Urged  on  their  horses  and  with  both  hands  loosed  the  reins. 

Now  on  a  sudden  all  the  race  course  filled  with  din 

Of  rattling  chariots.    Up  aloft  the  dust  cloud  flew, 

Enwrapping  all  together.    Spared  they  not  the  goad 

That  one  might  pass  the  others'  horses  snorting  foam. 

For  horses,  breathing  neck  and  neck,  now  smote  with  flecks. 

Blown  backwards,  rivals'  flanks  and  fellies  of  the  wheels. 

But  he,  just  grazing  past  the  post  each  time,  would  urge 

The  trace-horse  on  the  right  and  curb  the  left  inside. 

Now  thus  far  all  the  chariots  had  fared  upright, 

But  here  the  ^Enianian's  colts  the  curb  refused. 

Ran  off  with  violence  and,  swerving  from  the  course, 

('T  was  now  the  sixth  round  ended  or  the  seventh  now) 

Full  on  the  frontlets  of  the  Libyan's  team  they  crashed. 

From  this  mischancing  first  another  and  then  one 

Fouled  with  his  neighbour,  crushing  him,  till  all  the  course 

Crisaean  filled  with  wreckage  of  the  chariot  teams. 

This  noticing,  the  skilled  Athenian  charioteer 

Held  in  and  swerved  to  safer  ofi&ng  to  pass  by 

The  surge  of  chariot  billows  wallowing  in  the  midst. 

Last  came  Orestes  driving,  holding  back  his  colts. 

Placing  his  confidence  upon  the  final  heat. 

But  when  he  sees  the  man  from  Athens  left  alone 

He  stings  his  swift  colts'  ears  and  whistled  shrill  the  whip 

Pursuing.   Now  abreast  the  chariots  twain  drove  on, 

First  one  team,  then  the  other  leading  by  a  neck. 

Now  he  through  all  the  other  laps  unscathed  had  come, 

111  fated,  upright  on  the  upright  chariot  board. 

But  as  the  horses  doubled  now  the  final  turn 

He  loosed  the  left  rein,  recked  not  of  the  column's  edge 

And  struck  upon  it  full  the  shivering  axle-nave. 

Over  the  chariot  rim  he  lurched.   The  severing  straps 

Coiled  round  him.   As  he  fell  to  earth  the  colts  ran  wild 


OLYMPIA  407 

Along  the  race  course  wide.   The  people,  seeing  him 
Thus  fallen  from  the  team,  raise  outcries  loud  and  high 
At  what  the  youth  had  done  and  then  this  evil  hap. 
Now  borne  along  the  ground,  now  high  again  upflung 
His  legs  gleam  white,  until  the  charioteers  the  colts 
Had  checked,  no  easy  task,  and  disentangled  him 
So  covered  o'er  with  blood  that  never  had  a  friend, 
Seeing  that  ruined  form,  have  known  him  as  his  own. 

Both  the  Olympic  and  Pythian  games  were  held 
every  four  years.  The  Nemean  and  Isthmian  came  every 
two  years.  In  all  four  the  prize  was  similar :  the  wreath 
of  wild  olive  at  Olympia;  of  mountain  bay  at  Delphi; 
of  parsley  or  of  native  pine  at  Nemea;  of  parsley  at 
Corinth.  We  are,  indeed,  justified  in  emphasizing,  until 
the  period  of  decadence,  the  absence  of  professionalism. 
The  athlete,  after  undergoing  the  severest  training,  con- 
tested, with  no  degradation  of  gate-money,  merely  to  win 
the  honour  of  a  simple  wreath.  But  we  need  not  shut 
our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  the  honour  did  not  fade  with 
the  wreath.  It  belonged  to  the  athlete's  native  place 
and  to  all  his  fellow-citizens.  Thinking  of  the  evanes- 
cent glory  of  the  Isthmian  parsley  and  with  the  long 
race  in  the  stadium  of  Eternity  in  mind,  the  apostle 
Paul  might  indeed  point  the  contrast  for  his  hearers 
between  a  "corruptible  crown"  and  "one  that  fadeth 
not  away,"  yet  for  the  shorter  race-course  of  life  the 
emoluments  of  honour  and  preferment  were  secure. 
And,  in  addition  to  all  these  honours,  an  Olympian 
victor  had  a  post-mortem  value.  He  might  be  wor- 
shipped as  a  divinity  and  his  statue  might  heal  diseases, 


4o8   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

like  the  bones  of  a  mediaeval  saint.  Thus  Lucian's 
Momus,  the  god  of  critics,  reminds  Zeus  that  their  own 
prestige  is  endangered  by  these  new  faith-cures:  "Ac- 
tually," he  says,  "  the  statues  of  the  athlete  Polydamas 
at  Olympia  and  of  Theagenes  at  Thasus  are  curing 
fever-stricken  patients." 

The  athlete's  ambition  might  issue  in  a  selfish  "op- 
portunism," or  it  might  be  of  the  nobler  kind  to  which 
Pindar,  thinking  perhaps  of  the  altar  dedicated  ia  the 
Altis  to  the  god  "Opportunity"  (Katpo?),  would  lift 
the  contestant's  ideal  in  his  second  Olympian:  — 

Winning  the  contest  setteth  free  the  essayer  from  its 
care  and  pain,  and  wealth  embroidered  o'er  with  virtues 
bringeth  opportunity  for  this  and  that,  inspiring  mood  that 
broodeth  deeply  upon  earnest  themes. 

There  was  a  sacred  truce  from  hostilities  amongst 
all  Greeks  for  a  month,  to  allow  time  for  distant  com- 
petitors and  visitors  to  go  and  come  in  safety.  The 
games  were  held  in  summer  at  the  time  of  a  full  moon, 
whether  in  July  or  August  is  uncertain.  The  Septem- 
ber full  moon,  in  fact,  has  been  suggested  as  the  date 
in  the  even  Olympiads.  At  this  later  moon  the  heat 
might  be  almost  as  great  as  at  the  summer  solstice,  but 
it  may  be  that  the  earlier  date,  with  the  longer  day, 
was  in  vogue  as  long  as  the  contests  were  all  held  upon 
one  day.  At  any  rate,  the  longest  midsummer  day  was 
too  short  for  the  increasing  number  of  events,  and  after 
472  B.  c.  we  hear  of  five  days.  The  order  of  the  contests 
is  uncertain.   At  first,  it  would  appear,  the  foot-races 


OLYMPIA  409 

had  been  the  only  event.  Later  it  seems  probable  that 
the  foot-races,  the  long  race,  the  short  race,  and  the 
double  course,  came  upon  one  day ;  on  a  second  day, 
the  wrestling,  boxing,  and  pancratium.  The  chariot- 
races  and  the  pentathlum  came  on  one  and  the  same 
day.  The  pentathlum  was  justly  popular  as  calculated 
to  secure  an  all-round  development  of  the  human  form. 
It  included  leaping,  the  foot-race,  discus-throwing, 
javelin-throwing,  and  wrestling.  The  Spartans,  who 
were  never  charged  with  being  effeminate,  were  said 
to  favour  it  while  discountenancing  the  more  brutal 
pancratium.  We  certainly  are  not  much  attracted  by 
the  license  of  the  latter,  evidently  considered  legiti- 
mate, as  we  read  of  two  athletes  habitually  winning 
this  event  by  bending  back  their  antagonists'  fingers. 
One  of  them,  Sostratus,  was  surnamed  "  Finger-bender." 
But  the  judges  presided  with  absolute  authority  and  en- 
forced severe  penalties  against  violations  of  the  rules. 

Women  were  prohibited  under  pain  of  death  from 
even  crossing  the  river  and  entering  the  sacred  precinct 
during  the  time  of  the  games.  Pausanias  records  one 
violation.  Kallipateira,  or  Pherenike  ("Victoria"), 
the  daughter  of  Diagoras,  the  Rhodian  victor  immor- 
talized by  Pindar,  anxious  to  see  her  son  compete,  dis- 
guised herself  as  a  trainer.  In  her  exultation  at  her  son's 
success  she  betrayed  her  sex.  The  penalty  attached  was 
to  be  hurled  from  the  Typaeum  rock  on  a  mountain 
south  of  the  Alpheus.  In  deference  to  the  victories  won 
by  her  father,  her  brothers,  and  her  son,  she  was  par- 


41  o   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

doned,  but  thereafter  the  trainers  were  compelled  to 
enter  naked  like  the  athletes  themselves. 

The  priestess  of  Demeter,  however,  was  present  ex 
officio  y  and  Pausanias  expressly  states  that  virgins  also 
were  admitted  as  spectators.  This  statement  is  usually 
rejected,  but  it  may  have  been  true  for  certain  times 
under  the  influence  of  Sparta,  whose  customs  threw  the 
sanction  of  public  sentiment  around  the  athletic  con- 
tests of  their  maidens,  the  future  mothers  of  their  fight- 
ing men. 

Although  the  modern  reader  is  apt  to  think  of  the 
chariot-races  in  connection  with  Sicilian  tyrants,  they 
were,  as  we  have  seen  from  Sophocles,  an  integral  part 
of  Greek  life.  Herodotus,  in  the  midst  of  his  account 
of  the  battle  of  Marathon,  calmly  suspends  hostihties 
while  he  tells  how  Cimon,  father  of  Miltiades,  won  three 
successive  Olympic  victories  with  the  same  mares  and, 
as  fitting  climax,  adds  that  the  mares  were  buried 
on  the  stately  avenue  of  Athenian  tombs,  facing  the 
grave  of  Cimon  himself.  If  Herodotus  really  read  this 
at  Olympia  the  incident  would  not  have  seemed  to  his 
audience  an  intrusive  digression. 

In  addition  to  the  four-horse  and  two-horse  chariot- 
races  there  was  the  race  with  mules  —  no  mean  animals 
in  Greece  and  the  Orient.  Pindar  repeatedly  celebrates 
them  in  his  Olympian  odes.  There  was  also  the  single 
race-horse  ridden  by  a  jockey.  One  horse  from  Syra- 
cuse, Pherenicus  ("Victor"),  was  celebrated  in  song 
both  by  Pindar  and  Bacchylides.  Pindar  tells  how  he 


OLYMPIA  4" 

"ran  the  course,  his  body  by  the  goad  unurged"  and 
brought  victory  to  Hieron.  Bacchylides,  reminding  us 
that  the  horse-races  opened  the  events  of  the  day,  ex- 
claims :  — 

The  Dawn,  who  touches  earth  with  gold,  saw  Phere- 
nicus,  wind-swift  sorrel  steed,  victorious  beside  Alpheus 
eddying  wide,  and  saw  him,  too,  victorious  at  Pytho  the 
divine.  And  I  lay  hand  on  earth  and  swear:  Not  yet  has 
dust-cloud  raised  by  horses  in  the  lead  e'er  touched  him  in 
the  race-course  as  he  hastened  to  the  goal. 

Now  sing  of  Zeus,  the  Kronos  son,  Olympian  ruler  of 
the  gods  and  of  unwearied  Alpheus.  Sing  of  mighty  Pe- 
lops  and  of  Pisa  too,  where  famed  Pherenicus  won  with 
hurrying  feet  the  victory  and  came  back  to  the  ramparts 
finn  of  Syracuse  and  brought  to  Hieron  the  (olive)  leaf  of 
fortune  fair. 

Pausanias  tells  of  a  Corinthian  race-horse,  Aura 
("Breeze"),  perhaps  one  of  the  famous  "Koppa"* 
breed,  sired  by  Pegasus.  The  jockey  was  thrown  at  the 
beginning  of  the  race,  but  the  mare  continued  without 
breaking  form,  rounded  the  turning  stake,  quickened 
her  pace  at  the  sound  of  the  trumpet,  reached  the  um- 

*  The  old  letters  Koppa  ( p)  and  Sampi  (/^)  were  used  to  brand  the 
haunches  of  blooded  horses.  The  letter  f,  used  as  an  abbreviation 
for  Korinthos,  when  obsolete  in  many  parts  of  Greece,  was  retained 
in  the  Corinthian  alphabet.  It  had  been  carried  to  Italy  by  the  early 
Greek  colonists  and  so  passed  into  our  alphabet  as  the  letter  Q. 

Young  Phidippides  in  the  Clouds  of  Aristophanes  had  plunged 
his  father  into  debt  by  his  race-track  operations  and  had  in  his 
stables  a  racer  of  this  Koppa  breed  bought  with  money  borrowed 
from  the  usurer  Pasias. 


412    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

pires  first,  knew  that  she  had  won,  and  stopped.  The 
owner  of  the  riderless  horse  was  proclaimed  victor. 

It  would  be  very  unsafe  to  assert  that  the  eager 
Greeks,  if  called  back  to  our  own  age  of  ingenious 
mechanisms,  would  turn  uninterested  from  the  vicari- 
ous competition  by  motor-cars,  or  feel  nothing  but  dis- 
gust at  human  forms  crooked  into  the  semblance  of 
brutes  over  a  flying  bicycle,  but  it  is  safe  to  emphasize 
that  all  their  contests,  whether  exhibiting  the  develop- 
ment of  the  perfect  human  body  or  the  beauty  of  the 
horse,  ministered  to  that  sure  sense  of  form  and  pro- 
portion which  they  demanded  and  obtained  from  poet, 
painter,  and  musician,  sculptor,  architect,  and  athlete. 
But  horse  and  chariot-racing  involved  certain  special 
temptations.  As  time  went  on,  the  "anything  to  win" 
spirit  was  sure,  now  and  then,  to  assert  itself.  The 
legend  of  the  lynch-pin  withdrawn  from  the  chariot 
of  (Enomaus  by  the  bribery  of  Pelops  must  have  called 
for  strenuous  casuistry  from  the  priests  of  Zeus  when 
it  was  necessary  to  punish  offenders  for  shady  practices 
towards  rivals.  Pindar  magnificently  ignores  the 
thought  of  treachery.   With  him  it  is  a  god  that — 

glorified  him  with  the  gift  of  golden  chariot  and  winged 
untiring  steeds:  mighty  (Enomaus  he  overtook  and  won 
the  maiden  for  his  bride. 

Although  in  later  times  the  peripatetic  professional 
developed  and  could  claim  as  precedent  the  victories 
repeatedly  won  at  various  centres  by  the  athletes  of  old, 


OLYMPIA  413 

yet,  at  least  for  their  own  times,  Pindar  and  Bacchylides 
were  justified  in  assuming,  alike  for  their  Sicilian 
princes  or  for  their  boyish  winners  in  the  foot-race,  the 
genuine  amateur  spirit  of  athletic  rivalry.  In  the  fourth 
century  b.  c.  a  Cretan,  victor  in  the  long  race,  was  bribed 
to  transfer  his  citizenship  to  Ephesus.  The  Olympian 
athlete  had  not  then  become,  like  the  modem  base- ball 
pitcher,  a  legitimate  commodity  of  interstate  commerce, 
and  the  Cretans  with  justifiable  indignation  pronounced 
the  sentence  of  perpetual  exile  against  Sotades  the 
offender. 

For  Pindar,  indeed,  it  was  necessary  that  every  song 
should  rise  above  the  sordid,  either  in  belief  or  practice. 
He  was  at  once  a  supreme  artist  and  a  herald  of  the 
ideal.  He  even  expurgates  canonical  mythology  to  in- 
fuse into  his  odes  some  deeper,  nobler  lesson  suggested 
by  the  external  and  physical  victory.  And  this,  although 
several  of  his  odes  were  addressed  to  rich  tyrants  like 
Hieron  of  Syracuse,  at  whose  court  were  welcomed  and 
honoured  iEschylus,  Simonides,  Pindar,  Bacchylides 
and  many  more.  "He  was  to  them  in  some  measure 
what  Augustus  was  to  Virgil  and  Horace,  what  Lorenzo 
de'  Medici  was  to  the  members  of  the  Florentine  Acad- 
emy." *  Pindar  honestly  regarded  him  as  the  patron  of 
letters  and  as  a  bulwark  against  the  barbarians.  He 
had  fought  under  Gelon  against  the  Carthaginians,  and, 
soon  after  the  battles  of  Himera  and  Salamis,  the  Etrus- 
cans, who  were  also  threatening  Greek  supremacy,  were, 

*  Compare  Jebb's  Bacchylides,  p.  200. 


414   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

in  474  B.  c,  defeated  by  him.  Early  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  from  a  partial  excavation  at  Olympia,  a 
bronze  helmet  of  Etruscan  make  found  its  way  to  the 
British  Museum.  On  it  is  the  inscription:  " Hieron,  son 
of  Deinomenes,  and  the  Syracusans  (dedicated)  to  Zeus 
these  Tyrrhene  spoils  from  Cumse."  It  tantalizes  with 
the  sequence  of  historic  associations.  From  lips  within 
this  helmet  came  words  of  war  in  the  dead  Etruscan 
tongue  that  still  baffles  linguistic  classification;  on  it 
were  inscribed  Greek  words  in  the  dialect  of  the  proud 
Greek  colonists  in  Sicily;  mingled  Greek  dialects 
greeted  it  when  dedicated  in  the  sacred  centre  of  the 
motherland;  and  now  it  is  again  held  as  spoils  by 
another  and  mightier  island  folk. 

Pindar  could  not  prophesy  the  fatal  conflict  between 
the  tyrants  of  the  west  and  the  greedy  imperialism  of 
Athenian  demagogues.  He  could  not  peer  into  the 
stone  quarries  at  Syracuse  and  see  the  legatees  of  Sala- 
mis  scorched  under  the  lidless  eye  of  a  Sicilian  sun.  He 
could  not  foresee  a  Macedonian  ruling  over  Hellas  nor 
forecast  the  Greek  world  under  Roman  sway.  He  could 
not  have  understood  how  even  Plato,  with  the  addi- 
tional perspective  of  another  half  century,  crowded  with 
disturbing  shifts  of  value  both  in  literature  and  govern- 
ment, would  seek  relief  from  the  spectre  of  tyranny  not 
in  democracy  but  by  converting  the  baser  metal  of  the 
despot  into  the  pure  gold  of  the  philosophic  King.  Yet 
Pindar  is  not  without  his  misgivings.  In  words  none 
too  vague  he  warns  the  ruler,  whose  gold  called  forth 


OLYMPIA  415 

his  songs,  of  the  dangers  inherent  in  power.  In  the  first 
Olympian  he  tells  Hieron: — 

A  man  erreth  if  he  thinketh  that  in  doing  aught  he 
shall  escape  God's  eyes.  .  .  .  Man's  greatness  is  of  many 
kinds ;  the  highest  is  to  be  achieved  by  Kings.  Crane  not 
thy  neck  for  more.  And  be  it  thine  to  walk  life's  path  with 
lofty  tread. 

With  better  right  and  greater  force  ^Eschylus,  him- 
self warrior  of  Marathon  and  Salamis,  in  the  "  Aga- 
memnon" covertly  warns  his  Athenian  contemporaries, 
then  engaged  in  imperial  schemes  of  expansion  in 
Egypt  and  elsewhere,  against  the  haughty  spirit  that 
goeth  before  a  fall.  His  words  easily  connect  themselves 
with  this  Pindaric  ode  because  the  return  of  the  Greek 
host  from  Troy  brings  out  on  Clytemnestra's  lips  the 
metaphor  drawn  from  the  double  racecourse  —  the 
BCavXoi.  Ilium  is  but  the  turning-post  at  the  farther 
end;  Argos  is  both  the  starting-point  and  the  goal;  the 
stadium  is  the  JEgesm  sea :  — 

But  beware  lest  some  desire 
May  fall  upon  our  men,  succumbing  to  their  greed, 
To  ravage  what  they  should  not :  they  for  safe  return 
Unto  their  homes  must  bend  them  back  again,  adown 
The  double  race-track's  other  leg. 

To  make  selections  from  Pindar  is  to  pry  out  jewels 
from  an  antique  setting.  But  his  Olympic  odes  give 
the  best  interpretation  of  the  best  meaning  of  the  games. 
Some  were  impromptu  odes  crystallized  under  the 
stress  of  the  victory  and  sung  in  the  Altis  while  the  full 


41 6    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

moon  shone  upon  the  hero  of  the  day.  Some  were  longer 
and  written  at  leisure  for  the  supplementary  celebra- 
tion at  the  victor's  home.  But  in  any  case  the  thought 
was  not  impromptu.  The  Theban  eagle  soared  habit- 
ually and  paused  for  a  moment  only  at  Olympia,  sent 
by- 

the  Hours,  circling  in  the  dance  to  music  of  the  lyre's 
changing  notes,  to  be  a  witness  to  the  greatest  of  all 
games. 

Yet  with  all  his  soaring  Pindar  never  forgot  the 
gracious  beauty  of  human  life.  The  Graces  are  ever 
near.  Victory,  he  tells  us,  by  the  Graces'  aid  is  won,  and 
the  charioteers  — 

Charis  transfigures  with  the  beauty  of  their  fame,  as  they 
drive  foremost  in  the  twelfth  round  of  the  race. 

Pindar  calls  his  song  "a  writing  tally  of  the  Muses." 
Not  he  that  runs  may  read,  but  whoever  will  be  at  pains 
to  wrap  the  Greek  scroll  around  the  tally-stick  can 
read  the  cypher  and  can  find  the  clue  to  lead  him  safely 
through  "the  sounding  labyrinths  of  song."*  Pindar 
could  presuppose  an  acquaintance  with  mythology  at 
least  as  familiar  as  was  to  every  child  of  a  generation 
ago  the  knowledge  of  the  Old  Testament.  Conflicting 
myths  lived  side  by  side  in  the  popular  consciousness. 
The  sculptor  and  the  poet  could  choose  or  reject  at  will. 
However  recondite  may  seem  at  times  the  application 
of  the  myth  to  the  Olympic  victor  in  question,  the 

*  Olympian  Odes,  i,  translated  by  E.  Myers. 


OLYMPIA  417 

pages  of  Pindar  are  constantly  illuminated  by  some 
flash-light  that  photographs  upon  the  particular  a 
glimpse  of  the  universal.  From  Olympia  in  Elis  we  are 
transported  to  Olympus.  Heracles  brought  from  Olym- 
pus the  charter  for  the  games;  there,  too,  is  both  the 
starting-line  and  finish  of  the  poet's  courser:  "Pegasus 
is  stabled  in  Olympus."  Pindar  does  not  belittle  the 
mysteries  of  the  unseen.  When  the  fame  of  Theron  of 
Acragas  (Girgenti)  is  said  to  over-pass  Sicily  and  to 
touch  the  pillars  of  Heracles,  the  thought  of  the  path- 
less ocean  suggests  a  wider  and  uncharted  Cosmos. 
His  search-light  projects  for  a  moment  its  stare  into 
infinity,  but  it  is  forthwith  checked  with  characteristic 
restraint :  — 

What  lies  beyond  nor  foot  of  wise  man  nor  unwise  has 
ever  trod.   I  will  not  follow  on.  My  quest  were  vain. 

Pindar's  description  of  the  ancient  consecration  of 
the  Altis  may  serve  to  justify  the  Labours  of  Heracles 
carved  upon  the  Zeus  temple :  — 

Heracles  there  measured  off  a  sacred  grove  unto  the 
sovereign  father  and  he  ordained  the  plain  around  for  rest 
and  feasting.  He  honoured  the  Alpheus  stream  together 
with  the  twelve  lord  gods  and  he  gave  utterance  to  the  name 
of  Kronos  hill,  till  then  unnamed. 

His  praise  of  the  discus  victor  comes  to  mind  when  we 
see  a  copy  of  Myron's  Discobolus  or  the  graceful  throw 
of  a  contemporary  Greek  in  the  Stadium  of  modem 
Athens :  — 


41 8   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

In  distance  all  surpassing,  Nikeus  hurled  the  stone  with 
circling  hand  and  from  his  warrior  mates  a  mighty  cheer 
swept  by. 

And  we  seem  ourselves  to  share  in  the  evening  cele- 
bration in  the  Altis  when  — 

the  lovely  shining  of  the  fair-faced  moon  illumined  it  and 
all  the  precinct  rang  with  song  and  festal  mirth. 

We  can  share  too  in  the  undertone  of  pathos  in  Pin- 
dar's reference  to  the  dead  father  of  a  young  athlete. 
Asopichus  is  winner  in  the  boys'  footrace,  and  the 
news  of  his  victory  is  sent  to  his  father  in  Hades.  The 
Arcadian  nymph  Echo  is  the  messenger :  — 

Fly,  Echo,  to  the  dark-walled  palace  of  Persephone  and 
to  his  father  bear  the  tidings  glorious.  Seek  Cleodamus, 
tell  him  how  for  him  his  son  hath  crowned  his  boyish  hair 
with  wreaths  of  th'  ennobling  games  in  famous  Pisa's 
vale. 

Perhaps  the  most  radiant  picture  of  "festal  mirth" 
is  called  up  by  Pindar's  seventh  Olympian,  written  for 
Diagoras  of  Rhodes.  Diagoras's  two  sons  and  his 
grandson  were  also  Olympic  victors.  This  acted,  on  at 
least  two  occasions,  as  a  family  prophylactic.  His 
daughter,  as  we  have  seen,  was  pardoned  by  reason  of 
this  for  her  intrusion  in  disguise  at  the  Olympic  games, 
and  Dorieus,  his  son,  when  captured  by  the  Athenians 
in  a  sea-fight,  escaped  the  only  alternatives  usual  in 
the  case  of  a  prisoner  of  war.  He  was  neither  put  to 
death  nor  forced  to  pay  a  ransom,  but  set  free,  just  as 


OLYMPIA  419 

Balaustion,  the  Rhodian  girl,  was  set  free  by  the  Syra- 
cusans  because  she  delighted  her  captors  by  repeating 
a  new  drama  of  Euripides.  And  the  Rhodians  wrote 
up  Pindar's  ode  in  letters  of  gold  in  the  Athena  temple 
on  the  acropolis  of  Lindus.  The  modern  visitor  to  this 
enchanting  island  climbs  up  the  lofty  headland  that 
rises  abruptly  between  the  shining  water  of  the  two 
indenting  bays,  and,  before  he  passes  through  the  ruins 
of  the  ancient  propylaea  and  the  still  imposing  por- 
tals of  the  fortress  of  the  Knights  of  St.  John,  he  sees 
upon  the  solid  rock  the  after  part  of  a  huge  trireme  with 
the  steering-oar  and  the  rippling  water  carved  in  stone. 
He  can  imagine  a  trireme  of  a  former  day  entering  the 
harbour  below  with  triumphal  sweep  of  oars,  bringing 
Diagoras  and  his  victory  back  to  his  townsfolk  in  this 
far-off  corner  of  the  Greek  world.  He  can  picture  the 
procession  of  Lindians  to  Athena's  temple;  the  bril- 
liant colouring  of  robes  and  chitons ;  the  choral  music ; 
the  exultation  in  their  townsman's  physical  prowess 
and  their  intoxication  of  delight  because  the  greatest  of 
lyric  poets  is  reaching  out  to  them,  as  to  the  bridegroom 
at  a  wedding-feast,  a  chalice  of  pure  gold  resplendent, 
brimming  with  the  "distilled  nectar"  of  his  song. 

But  Pindar  soars  beyond  the  pride  of  life  even  as  he 
universalizes  the  individual  experience.  It  was  not  only 
St.  Paul's  idealism  that  perceived  the  great  contest  in 
which  humanity  is  forever  engaged.  In  Pindar's  second 
Olympian  the  athlete's  triumph  suggests  the  victory 
over  Death,  and  the  Kronos  hill  becomes  the  "tower 


420   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

of  Kronos"  to  which  the  victor  travels  over  "the  high- 
way of  Olympian  Zeus."  So  the  arch-idealist  Plato,  in 
closing  his  great  constructive  vision  of  the  Ideal  State, 
can  find  no  more  fitting  comparison  for  him  that  over- 
cometh  than  by  likening  him  to  the  victors  in  the 
Games:  "If  we  take  my  advice,  believing  that  the  soul 
is  immortal,  we  shall  ever  hold  to  that  upward  path- 
way and  at  every  turn  shall  practice  justice  joined  to 
intelligence  that  we  may  be  at  once  friends  of  ourselves 
and  of  the  gods  and  may  fare  well  .  .  .  both  while  we 
abide  here  and  when,  like  the  prize-winners,  we  come 
to  gather  in  the  prizes  of  the  games." 

But  aside  from  lofty  thoughts  like  these,  native  to 
the  greater  interpretative  intelligences  of  Greece,  the 
recently  discovered  poems  of  Bacchylides  tell  us  much 
of  the  actual  spirit  of  the  games.  Bacchylides  was 
nephew  of  Simonides,  the  poet-laureate  of  the  nation 
from  Thermopylae  to  Plataea,  and  he  was  also  the  grand- 
son and  namesake  of  a  famous  athlete.  He  was  quali- 
fied to  sing  both  the  Games  and  the  Graces.  And  the 
native  of  the  little  island  of  Ceos  did  not  hesitate  to 
enter  the  contest  with  the  splendidly  arrogant  Theban 
who  could  compare  his  inferior  rivals  to  "crows  that 
chatter  against  the  divine  bird  of  Zeus."  * 

Of  the  twelve  epinician  odes  of  Bacchylides  three 
were  addressed  to  Hieron,  at  whose  court  he  enjoyed 
especial  favour.  Two  Olympic  odes  were  written  for 
Lachon,  a  young  athlete  from  the  poet's  native  island. 

*  Pindar,  Olympian  Odes,  ii,  translated  by  E.  Myers. 


OLYMPIA  421 

One  of  these  is  a  short  serenade  sung  before  the  victor's 
own  house  by  his  fellow-citizens.  Nothing  could  better 
illustrate  the  intensity  of  local  pride  and  enthusiasm. 
Now  the  victorious  athlete  is  praised,  now  his  very 
identity  is  merged  in  the  personification  of  his  native 
land.  It  is  Ceos  herself  that  has  won  the  boxing  and 
the  foot-race.  Lachon,  as  the  ode  reminds  us,  has 
already  been  greeted  by  the  impromptu  choral  sung  at 
Olympia  on  the  evening  of  his  triumph.  Now  he  is 
welcomed  at  home  by  another  choral  for  which  there 
has  been  ample  time  to  make  ready.  Bacchylides  may 
well  have  written  this  little  serenade  not  as  a  paid 
commission  but  as  a  spontaneous  outburst  of  patriotic 
pride  and  affection  for  his  country  and  his  fellow  coun- 
trymen. We  should  prefer  to  have  it  so.  In  any  case  we 
feel  a  human  interest  in  the  young  athlete  whose  strong 
body  and  swift  feet  have  won  the  prize:  — 

Lachon  has  Jot  of  such  renown 
From  Zeus  most-high  as  yet  had  none, 
Enhancing  fame  with  feet  that  run 
Beside  Alpheus  flowing  down. 
For  which  e'er  this  with  hair  wreath-bound 
Olympic  youths  sang  songs  around 
•   How  Ceos,  with  her  vineyards  crowned. 
The  boxing  and  the  foot-race  won. 

Thee  now  song-queen  Urania's  hymn 

Ennobles  —  O  thou  wind-fleet  one, 

Of  Aristomenes  the  son  — 

Thy  praise  as  victor  homeward  bringing 

And  here  before  thy  lintel  singing 

How  thou,  thy  course  through  stade-race  winging, 

Brought  Ceos  fame  no  time  shall  dim. 


422   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

From  little  Ceos,  the  second  in  order  of  those  bright 
stepping-stones  that  dot  the  ^gean  from  Attica  to 
Rhodes,  we  may  quickly  cross  to  the  mainland  and 
find  our  way  to  Marathon.  From  there  to  Athens 
we  trace  that  greatest  of  all  ancient  race- courses  over 
which  the  Greek  runner  ran  in  full  armour  to  give  with 
his  dying  breath  the  warning  and  the  news  of  victory, 
and  to  win  a  memorial  beside  which  the  olive-wreath 
might  well  turn  pale.* 

When  the  modern  Athenians  revived  the  Olympic 
Games  the  chariot- races  were  beyond  their  resources. 
Contests  of  personal,  physical  strength  and  skill  con- 
stitute the  fitting  nucleus  of  the  games  held  in  the 
old  Stadium,  now  newly  covered  with  marble  from 
the  "mountain  that  looks  on  Marathon."  And  it  was 
a  happy  and  natural  thought  to  add  as  the  closing 
event  the  great  Marathon  race.  While  perpetuating 
the  glory  of  the  Athenians  it  reenforces  the  loyalty  of 
all  the  Greeks  to  their  national  capital.  In  this  race 
centres  the  chief  ambition  of  the  Greeks.  The  other 
events  are  of  secondary  importance.  If  fanciful  critics 
demand  any  further  excuse  for  the  change  of  venue 
from  Olympia  to  Athens,  it  may  be  enough  to  re- 
mind them  that  Heracles  (according  to  one  tradition) 
brought  in  the  first  place  from  the  banks  of  the  Ilissus 
the  original  graft  of  the  sacred  olive-tree  from  which, 
at  Olympia,  the  victor's  crown  was  cut  with  the  golden 
sickle.    With  graceful  sentiment,  however,  the  olive 

*  For  this  story  see  chapter  vii,  p.  159,  and  note. 


OLYMPIA  423 

sprigs  are  now  in  turn  brought  to  Athens  from  Olym- 
pia. 

Despite  all  the  modem  barnacles  that  encrust  the 
ancient  torso,  the  student  of  old  Greek  life  can  find 
much  to  stimulate  him  in  the  revival  of  contests  in- 
herited, or  directly  developed,  from  ancient  times  r— 
such  as  the  foot-race,  short  and  long  distance ;  javelin- 
throwing;  leaping;  and,  chief  of  all,  the  discus-throw 
in  the  ancient  style.  The  interest  of  the  Greeks  to- 
day in  this  latter  event  is  second  only  to  that  in  the 
Marathon  race. 

A  modern,  seated  in  the  Stadium  at  Athens,  has  cause 
for  meditation.  Behind  the  gaudy  hats  and  parasols 
of  women,  the  more  sombre  clothing  of  men,  or  the 
brilliant  uniforms  of  officials  gleams  Pentelic  marble. 
Over  many  tens  of  thousands  of  spectators,  gathered 
from  all  Greece  and  Europe  and  from  beyond  the 
Atlantic,  float  the  flags  of  powerful  nations :  of  Turkey ; 
of  the  lands  that  look  upon  the  northern  seas;  of  the 
mighty  spawn  of  the  Anglo-Roman;  and  of  the  New 
Atlantis.  None  of  these  nations  had  emerged  from 
barbarism  when  this  same  choir  of  encircling  hills  sang 
together  the  triumph  song  of  Salamis.  Prometheus, 
the  incarnation  of  human  self-assertion,  rebel  to  the 
rule  of  Zeus,  pinioned  on  a  crag  overlooking  those  same 
northern  seas,  is  made  by  the  Greek  prophet  to  utter 
the  pessimistic  cry:  "New  gods  rule  Olympus."  Now, 
as  a  modern  Greek  remarked  to  an  American  visitor, 
"the  old  gods  have  migrated  to  a  new  Olympus." 


424   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

But  although  the  gold-ivory  statue  of  Zeus  cannot 
reappear  from  the  ruins  of  Olympia,  yet  "the  godhead 
of  supernal  song"  remains  in  the  literature  of  the 
Greeks,  interpreting  and  interpreted  by  the  contribu- 
tions of  the  archaeologists.  Swinburne's  words  are  not 
mere  poetic  license :  — 

"Dead  the  great  chryselephantine  god,  as  dew  last  evening  shed; 
Dust  of  earth  and  foam  of  ocean  is  the  symbol  of  his  head : 
Earth  and  ocean  shall  be  shadows  when  Prometheus  shall  be  dead." 


CHAPTER  XIX 

MESSENIA 

A  land  where  fruit  trees  blossom,  myriad  fountains  flow 
And  flocks  and  herds  are  grazing  in  the  meadows  fair. 
Nor  wintry  are  the  winds  of  winter,  nor  too  near 
The  flaming  Sun  comes  driving  in  his  four-horse  car. 

Euripides,  Fragment  of  the  Cresphontes. 

TELEMACHUS,  in  scarch  of  his  father,  sailed 
down  the  western  coast  of  the  Peloponnesus, 
landed  at "  sandy  Pylos,"  the  home  of  N^tor, 
and  by  this  old  friend  was  sent  across  country  to  Mene- 
laus  at  Lacedaemon.  The  long  drive  was  broken  by  a 
night  at  Pherae.  According  to  a  tradition  that  still  has 
its  supporters  the  modem  site  of  Pylos  is  Navarino,  in 
the  centre  of  the  western  coast  of  Messenia,  while 
Pherae  is  represented  by  Kalamata,  on  the  northeastern 
shore  of  the  Messenian  Gulf.  A  growing  tendency  to  push 
Nestor's  realm  further  up  the  coast,  out  of  Messenia, 
and  to  place  Pherae  in  Arcadia  is  due,  in  part,  to  the  dis- 
crepancy between  the  lot  of  modern  travellers  on  their 
way  from  Kalamata  to  Sparta  and  that  of  the  two  young 
princes  of  the  Homeric  story.  Telemachus  and  the  son 
of  Nestor  mounted  an  inlaid  chariot  at  early  dawn, 
their  two  horses,  touched  lightly  by  the  whip,  flew 
eagerly  onward,  and  at  sunset,  as  all  the  ways  were 


426   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

darkening,  the  wheat-bearing  plain  of  Lacedaemon 
opened  before  their  eyes.  Moderns,  whether  merchants 
or  sightseers,  must  spend  an  equally  long  or  longer  day 
in  riding  on  mules  or  plodding  horses  over  the  difficult 
paths  of  Mount  Taygetus,  whose  massive  bulk  forms  an 
almost  impenetrable  barrier  between  Messenia  and 
Laconia.  The  narrow  bridle  paths  of  the  Gorge  of  the 
Ned  on,  which  is  the  trade  route,  and  the  savage 
beauty  of  the  Langada  Gorge  exclude  highways  for 
royal  cars  and  on- rushing  steeds. 

Whether  or  no  Kalamata  was  once  an  insignificant 
way-station  between  two  princely  domains,  it  is  now 
one  of  the  most  prosperous  towns  of  the  new  nation, 
sep2frated  from  Athens  only  by  a  day's  ride  in  an  ex- 
press train,  and  the  natural  starting  point  for  excur- 
sions in  Messenia. 

From  this  rich  southern  plain  it  is  easy  to  reach 
the  confines  of  the  more  northern  plain,  which  was  the 
country's  heart.  Here  was  the  capital  of  its  prehistoric 
kings,  and  here  about  the  mountain  fortresses  of  Ithome 
and  Eira  occurred  the  chief  events  of  its  pitiable  his- 
toric life.  Ithome  is  one  of  the  highest  fortified  moun- 
tains in  Greece,  but  can  be  ascended  by  roadways  which 
only  below  the  fortress  peaks  change  to  rocky  paths, 
insecure  even  for  mountain  horses.  From  this  summit, 
by  the  favour  of  Zeus  of  the  open  sky  whose  sanctuary 
it  once  was,  all  Messenia  can  be  overlooked.  It  is  in- 
deed a  lovely  country.  The  mountain  ranges  to  the 
north  and  east  have  reserved  their  sterner  influences 


MESSENIA  427 

for  other  peoples,  while  the  open  sea  along  the  western 
and  southern  coasts  bestows  the  largess  of  a  perfect 
climate.  The  country  between  Kalamata  and  Ithome 
is  one  of  great  fertility  and  beauty.  Orchards  of  gray- 
green  olives  are  broken  by  dark  cypresses,  while  lemon 
and  orange  groves,  unknown  to  Euripides,  add  their 
peculiar  radiance  to  the  landscape.  In  the  spring, 
almond  trees  delicately  lift  their  pink  blossoms  above 
long  hedges  of  glistening  green  cactus,  and  the  green 
grass  of  the  wayside  fields  nurses  buttercups  and  scarlet 
anemones,  purple  and  yellow  irises,  and  thick  clusters 
of  deep  blue  flowers. 

The  loveliness  of  Messenia  decided  her  history,  which 
was  one  of  passionate  and  futile  resistance  to  foreign 
greed.  The  Spartan  poet  Tyrtaeus  said  that  the  soil 
of  Messenia  was  "good  to  plough  and  good  to  plant." 
Long  before  his  day  the  Spartans  had  stretched  out 
their  hands  for  it,  and  from  the  eighth  century  to  the 
fourth  they  never  relinquished  their  grasp.  During 
the  more  important  epochs  of  Greek  history  Messenia 
was  but  a  province  of  Laconia. 

But  it  was  a  province  capable  at  any  time  of  revolt. 
The  two  early  "  Messenian  Wars,"  of  the  eighth  and 
seventh  centuries,  were  the  stepping  stones  by  which 
Sparta  rose  to  a  place  of  power  in  the  Peloponnesus. 
Beset  by  agrarian  difficulties,  she  needed  more  land, 
and  the  most  fertile  land  of  Greece  was  to  be  had  for  a 
little  blood.  Of  the  second  war  we  have  a  few  fragmen- 
tary memorials  in  the  contemporaneous  martial  verses 


428   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

of  Tyrtaeus.  But  in  general  both  wars  would  be  almost 
obliterated  from  history  were  it  not  for  the  fact  that 
Pausanias,  having  access  to  some  late  prose  and  poetry 
which  repeated  the  native  legends,  in  an  unwonted 
mood  of  imaginative  sympathy  gave  himself  up  to 
recounting  the  pathetic  efforts  of  Messenia  toward  free- 
dom. There  is  the  usual  material :  heroes  and  fortresses, 
Aristodemus  and  Ithome  in  the  first  war,  Aristomenes 
and  Eira  in  the  second;  oracles  and  portents;  fair 
maidens  and  faithless  wives;  kings  and  cowherd  lovers; 
storms  and  marvellous  escapes;  courage  and  despair. 
Aristomenes,  as  Pausanias  says,  shines  out  like  Achilles 
in  the  Iliad,  "  the  first  and  greatest  glory  of  the  Mes- 
senian  name."  But  in  spite  of  his  heroic  and  pro- 
longed defence  of  Eira,  the  Messenians  by  the  sixth 
century  were  serfs  of  the  Spartans,  paying  to  their 
masters  a  half  of  all  the  produce  raised  by  their  own 
hands  from  their  own  farms,  —  asses,  Tyrtaeus  called 
them,  worn  by  intolerable  loads. 

In  the  fifth  century  they  took  advantage  of  an  earth- 
quake and  an  insurrection  of  slaves  at  Sparta  to  rise 
once  more  and  encamp  on  Ithome.  They  were  de- 
feated and  obliged  to  choose  between  serfdom  and 
exile.  But  by  this  time  their  petty  rebellions  had  be- 
come important  in  the  affairs  of  the  greater  powers  of 
Greece.  Ithome  was  the  rock  on  which  the  political 
life  of  Cimon  of  Athens  suffered  shipwreck. 

During  the  next  ninety  years  the  nationalism  of 
Messenia  was  a  homeless  and  restless  force,  seeking, 


MESSENIA  429 

wherever  it  might,  to  harm  Sparta  and  to  glorify  itself. 
During  the  Peloponnesian  War  the  Messenians  by  their 
knowledge  of  the  country  materially  aided  the  Athe- 
nians in  the  dramatic  battle  of  Sphacteria  off  the  Mes- 
senian  Pylos,  and  the  surrender  of  the  Spartans,  Thu- 
cydides  says,  amazed  all  Hellas. 

At  last,  about  370  b.  c,  the  "Poland  of  Greece" 
found  a  friend  in  the  man  whose  practical  idealism  was 
dominating  the  period.  Epaminondas,  in  pursuance 
of  his  policy  of  weakening  Sparta  by  reviving  other 
Peloponnesian  states,  determined  to  found  a  new  cap- 
ital of  Messenia,  Messene  by  name,  on  the  slopes  of 
Ithome.  Ruins  of  this  city  still  exist,  and  the  most  im- 
posing of  them,  the  fortification  known  as  the  Arcadian 
Gateway,  is  famous  as  an  example  of  skilful  Greek 
engineering.  Lying  toward  Megalopolis,  also  a  bene- 
ficiary of  Epaminondas,  it  seemed  to  reunite  in  a  new 
hope  the  old  Arcadia  and  the  old  Messenia  whose 
friendship  had  been  so  futile.  To-day,  still  a  strangely 
impressive  monument,  it  may  serve  as  a  symbol  of 
Messenia's  share  in  the  spirit  of  Greece.  Impotent  in 
literature  and  art  and  unsuccessful  even  in  war,  the 
men  of  this  country  conserved  through  many  genera- 
tions and  vicissitudes  that  intense  national  feeling 
which  existed  at  the  core  of  every  Greek  state,  shaping 
Greek  history  and  penetrating  Greek  literature.  Wher- 
ever history  became  large  and  literature  became  uni- 
versal the  force  of  national  consciousness  was  likely 
to  become  diffused,  but  in  a  state  like  Messenia  it  was 


430    GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

obscured  neither  by  other  national  gifts  nor  by  its  own 
success. 

The  Messenians,  Pausanias  tells  us,  "wandered  for 
nearly  three  hundred  years  far  from  Peloponnese,  and 
in  all  that  time  they  are  known  to  have  dropped  none 
of  their  native  customs,  nor  did  they  unlearn  their 
Doric  tongue."  After  the  victory  at  Leuctra  '*the 
Thebans  sent  messengers  to  Italy,  Sicily  and  the  Eues- 
peritae  inviting  all  Messenians  in  any  part  of  the  world 
whither  they  had  strayed  to  return  to  Peloponnese. 
They  assembled  faster  than  could  have  been  expected, 
for  they  yearned  towards  the  land  of  their  fathers  and 
hatred  of  Sparta  still  rankled  in  their  breasts."  And 
for  them  Epaminondas  made  a  new  city,  sending  "men 
who  were  skilled  in  laying  out  streets,  building  houses 
and  sanctuaries  and  erecting  city  walls."  The  Arcadi- 
ans sent  victims  for  the  sacrifices.  The  exiles,  home  at 
last,  prayed  to  their  ancient  gods  and  called  upon  their 
ancient  heroes  to  come  and  dwell  among  them.  "But 
loudest  of  all  was  the  cry  for  Aristomenes,  and  the 
whole  people  joined  in  it."  This  call  from  his  own 
people  has  been,  we  may  hope,  full  compensation  to  his 
dead  ears  for  the  dumb  or  sneering  lips  of  history. 


CHAPTER  XX 

SPARTA 

Lacedaemon's  hollowed  vale  by  mountain-gorges  pent. 

Homer,  Odyssey. 

IN  the  Spartans'  theory  of  life  adventures  abroad 
or  the  welcome  of  strangers  into  their  own  territory 
had  no  place.  Perhaps  nothing  more  sharply  dif- 
ferentiated them  from  the  Athenians,  whose  love  of 
roving  was  equalled  only  by  their  delight  in  seeing  the 
rest  of  the  world  drawn  to  their  city.  The  instinctive 
and  reasoned  reserve  of  the  Spartans  was  reenforced 
by  the  physical  conditions  of  their  country.  Laconia 
is  bulwarked  on  three  sides  by  mountains,  through 
which,  in  antiquity,  all  entrances  but  one  were  difficult, 
and  its  southern  boundary  is  the  open  and  stormy 
sea.  The  Laconian  Gulf  splits  the  country  into  two 
peninsulas,  ending  in  the  famous  promontories  of  Tae- 
narum  and  Malea,  in  rounding  which  so  many  sailors, 
from  the  days  of  Menelaus  and  Agamemnon  and 
Odysseus,  have  looked  for  violent  winds. 

Far  inland,  within  the  rifts  of  the  northern  hills,  lies 
the  plain  of  Sparta.  By  those  to  whom  the  sea  is  not 
an  essential  element  in  Greek  landscape  this  city  is 
held  to  be  more  beautifully  situated  than  any  other  in 


432   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Greece.  The  brilliant  luxuriousness  of  a  southern  low- 
land is  combined  with  the  austere  grandeur  of  moun- 
tain scenery.  Some  twenty  miles  in  length,  the  plain  is 
only  five  miles  broad  between  the  ranges  of  Taygetus 
and  of  Pamon,  whose  bases  show  extraordinary  caverns 
and  fissures.  Taygetus  stretches  along  the  whole  western 
side  of  Laconia,  but  rears  the  highest  of  its  long  line  of 
summits  just  over  Sparta.  These  magnificent  summits, 
covered  with  snow  for  two  thirds  of  the  year,  ennoble 
many  a  landscape  outside  of  Laconia.  Below  them 
extend  the  wide  tracts  of  forest  where  Artemis  once 
took  her  pleasure,  and  Spartan  hunters  tracked  the  wild 
boar  with  dogs  that  shared  their  "bravery"  and  "love 
of  toil"  and  won  a  guerdon  of  praise  from  Pindar  and 
Sophocles.  In  front  of  these  woodlands  rise  the  five 
peaks  which  have  given  to  the  mountain  the  modern 
name  of  Pentedactylon. 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  Greek  attitude  toward 
nature  that  the  mountain  is  not  praised  in  poetry  as 
much  as  is  the  beautiful  plain,  richly  fertilized  by  the 
river  Eurotas  on  its  way  from  Arcadia  to  the  sea.  Tele- 
machus,  in  spite  of  his  greater  affection  for  the  rough 
goat-pastures  of  his  native  Ithaca,  appreciated  the  wide 
courses  and  the  meadowland  of  Sparta  where  "  abound- 
eth  the  clover,  the  marsh  grass,  the  wheat  and  the  rye 
and  the  broad  white  ears  of  the  barley."  Euripides 
knew  that  the  reedy  bed  of  the  Eurotas,  the  trees  and 
meadow  flowers  of  its  banks,  its  hungry  foam  in  the 
season  of  heavy  rain  and  the  lovely  gleam  of  its  calmer 


SPARTA  433 

waters  would  haunt  the  homesick  hearts  of  Helen  and 
the  Spartan  maidens  who  shared  Iphigeneia's  exile 
among  the  Taurians. 

Modern  Sparta,  founded  after  the  War  of  Indepen- 
dence, lies  in  the  southern  district  of  the  Sparta  of  an- 
tiquity. Mediaeval  Sparta,  called  Mistra,  lay  some  dis- 
tance west  of  the  old  site,  very  near  the  entrance  to  the 
Langada  Pass.  Homeric  Sparta  lay  to  the  southeast, 
across  the  Eurotas,  at  Therapne,  later  a  suburb  of  the 
Doric  city.  Here  flourished  that  noble  court  which 
amazed  the  young  Ithacan  and  the  tale  of  which  is  still 
to  us  "a  fountain  of  immortal  drink."  Telemachus 
arrived  just  as  Menelaus  was  marrying  his  son  to  a 
native  princess,  and  his  daughter,  the  inheritor  of  her 
mother's  loveliness,  to  Thessalian  Neoptolemus,  Achil- 
les's  son.  Never  could  the  great  vaulted  hall  of  the 
palace  have  displayed  a  gayer  splendour.  The  son  of 
Odysseus  has  grown  up  in  no  mean  castle,  but  this 
gleam  of  gold  and  silver,  like  sun  and  moon,  this  flash- 
ing bronze  and  shining  ivory  and  glowing  amber  make 
him  feel  as  if  he  were  on  Olympus  at  the  court  of  Zeus. 
Tumblers  perform  wonderful  tricks.  A  divine  minstrel 
sings.  Silver  basins  and  golden  ewers  are  passed  around. 
Supper  is  served  on  a  polished  table  in  dishes  of  gold. 
Menelaus,  noticing  the  boy's  charming  admiration, 
tells  him  how  he  has  gathered  his  wealth  in  Cyprus  and 
Phoenicia  and  Egypt,  but  how  it  means  little  to  him  over 
against  the  loss  of  his  old  comrades  and  friends.  And 
as  they  talk  Helen  comes  in,  like  Artemis  of  the  golden 


434   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

arrows,  and  her  willing  servants  bring  her  a  carved 
chair  and  cover  it  with  a  rug  of  soft  wool.  And  sitting 
there,  her  white  hands  busied  with  the  deep  blue  wool 
wound  about  her  golden  distaff  and  with  the  dressed 
yarn  heaped  in  her  silver  basket  that  runs  on  little 
wheels  and  is  rimmed  with  gold,  she  talks  with  them 
of  what  happened  once  in  Troy  and  of  Odysseus  of  the 
hardy  heart  and,  quite  easily,  of  how  she  had  wanted 
to  come  home  again  to  her  own  country  and  her  child 
and  to  her  lord  "who  was  lacking  in  naught,  nor  wis- 
dom, nor  beauty  of  manhood."  And  into  their  drinking 
cups  she  put  a  drug  and  "they  drank  of  it,  quenching 
all  anger  and  pain  and  all  of  their  sorrows  forgetting." 

The  memory  of  the  royal  pair  never  died  in  Sparta, 
Therapne  contained  a  sanctuary  called  the  "Mene- 
laeion,"  where  prayers  were  offered  for  the  physical 
beauty  which  was  keenly  desired  by  an  athletic  people. 
Helen  sometimes  walked  abroad  to  bestow  in  turn  the 
gift  she  had  received  from  Aphrodite.  At  least,  Hero- 
dotus tells  a  story  of  a  nurse  taking  a  very  ugly  girl  baby 
to  the  temple  and  meeting  a  strange  woman  who  in- 
sisted upon  seeing  the  child  and  who  then  gently 
stroked  its  head  and  said,  "  One  day  this  child  shall 
be  the  fairest  lady  in  Sparta."  And  from  that  very  day 
her  looks  began  to  change  and  the  ugly  baby  became 
the  beauty  of  the  town  and  married  the  king. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  prolong  the  associations  with 
Homeric  Laconia  by  following  Helen  on  her  guilty 
flight  southward;  lingering  to  see  Amyclae,  a  rich  city 


SPARTA  435 

in  Homeric  times,  and  the  beehive  tomb  of  Vaphio, 
which  in  1889  yielded  up  two  incomparable  vessels  of 
gold  now  in  the  Museum  at  Athens;  and  going  on  to 
the  busy  seaport  town  of  Gytheion,  from  whose  docks 
Paris  took  his  stolen  bride  to  the  little  island  of  Cranae, 
now  Marathonisi,  before  spreading  his  defiant  sails 
for  the  longer  voyage.  But  sooner  or  later  the  fact  of 
the  Dorian  invasion  must  be  reckoned  with,  and  the 
resultant  birth  at  Sparta  of  a  civilization  totally  at  odds 
with  that  which  it  displaced. 

In  Laconia  the  invasion  was  one  of  conquest  and 
subjection,  and  the  victors  prided  themselves  on  keep- 
ing their  blood  pure,  much  as  the  Laconian  Maniotes 
of  modern  times  have  clung  fiercely  to  their  Spartan 
descent.  Sparta  became  the  Dorian  city  par  excellence^ 
the  protagonist  of  Dorian  ideals,  the  natural  leader  of 
the  forces  which  both  in  war  and  peace  were  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  Ionic  elements  in  Greek  life.  The  historical 
events  in  this  development  are  so  interwoven  with  the 
history  of  the  other  states  of  Greece,  especially  with 
that  of  Athens,  that  they  will  already  have  become 
familiar  to  travellers  who  visit  Sparta  last.  The  con- 
quest of  Messenia  first  increased  her  resources.  By 
the  middle  of  the  sixth  century  she  won  signal  victories 
over  Tegea  and  Argos  and  became  the  head  of  the 
Peloponnesian  Confederacy,  which  included  every 
state  in  the  Peloponnesus  except  Achaea  and  Argos. 
Before  the  end  of  the  century  she  was  the  leading  state 
of  Greece,  for  Thessaly  was  losing  ground  and  Athens 


436   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

had  not  yet  risen.  In  the  first  part  of  the  fifth  century 
Sparta  was  the  natural  leader  of  the  Greek  allies 
against  Persia,  and  in  the  autumn  of  481  b.  c.  was  the 
head  of  the  congress  at  the  Isthmus.  To  her  generals 
was  given  the  command  of  both  the  army  and  the  navy. 
But  her  conduct  of  the  wars  at  best  did  not  increase  her 
prestige,  nor  did  she  afterwards  exhibit  any  skill  in 
using  new  conditions.  This  was  the  opportunity  of 
Ionic  Athens  to  create  the  greatest  period  of  Greek  his- 
tory. But  Sparta  was  also  strong  and  possessed  in 
Brasidas  a  general  unparalleled  among  the  Laconians 
for  eager  enterprise,  trustworthiness  and  personal  popu- 
larity. A  final  struggle  was  inevitable.  The  Dorians 
won,  and,  at  the  end  of  the  fifth  century,  once  more  for 
a  generation  held  the  balance  of  power  in  Greece.  But 
Sparta's  despotism  within  the  Peloponnesus  and  her  de- 
sire for  foreign  aggrandizement  created  new  hostilities. 
Early  in  the  fourth  century  Persia  undermined  her 
maritime  power,  and  Greek  friendships  as  strange  as 
the  iEschylean  truce  between  fire  and  water  were 
formed  to  her  detriment.  Athens  and  Thebes,  Corinth 
and  Argos  forgot  old  enmities  in  hatred  of  Sparta,  but 
she  maintained  her  supremacy  and  forced  upon  Greece 
the  arbitration  of  the  Persian  king.  For  fifteen  years 
Greek  politics  veered  hither  and  thither,  and  then  at 
Leuctra  Epaminondas  conquered  Sparta  and  won  the 
leadership  of  Greece  for  Thebes.  His  death  gave  one 
more  opportunity  to  Athens,  but  before  she  could  use 
it  Macedon  arose  and  at  Chaeronea  united  her  with 


SPARTA  437 

Sparta  in  a  common  humiliation.  Never  again  did 
either  Dorian  or  Ionian  state  have  power  to  alarm  the 
other. 

Thucydides  described  Sparta  as  a  straggling  village 
like  the  ancient  towns  of  Hellas.  Polybius  added  that 
it  was  roughly  circular  in  shape  and  level,  although  it 
inclosed  certain  uneven  and  hilly  places.  It  had  no 
real  acropolis,  but  the  highest  of  its  several  hills  re- 
ceived this  conventional  name;  and  it  was  not  forti- 
fied by  walls  until  long  after  the  greatest  days  of  its 
history.  Four  districts  or  wards,  Pitane,  apparently  the 
aristocratic  quarter,  Limnae,  Cynosura,  and  Mesoa, 
perhaps  represented  an  early  group  of  villages  which 
later  were  united  in  one  city. 

This  city  was  extraordinarily  barren  of  artistic  adorn- 
ment. The  citizens  of  no  other  leading  state  in  the 
whole  of  Greece  were  so  indifferent  to  the  value  of  archi- 
tecture and  sculpture,  nor  is  it  likely  that  they  were  per- 
turbed by  the  prophecy  of  Thucydides:  "If  the  com- 
munity of  Lacedaemon  should  become  a  desert  with 
only  the  temples  and  ground  foundations  remaining, 
I  think  that,  after  the  lapse  of  much  time,  men  of  the 
future  would  be  very  slow  to  believe  that  the  power 
of  the  Lacedaemonians  was  equal  to  their  fame.  And 
yet  they  possess  two  of  the  five  divisions  of  the  Pelo- 
ponnesus and  hold  the  hegemony  of  the  whole  and  of 
many  outside  allies.  But  this  community  is  not  a  city 
regularly  built  with  costly  temples  and  edifices  and 
would  seem  rather  insignificant." 


438   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

Temples  and  edifices  of  course  there  were  for  the  busi- 
ness of  life  and  of  religion,  but  the  need  for  them  was 
not,  as  in  Athens,  or  even  in  certain  cities  of  rude 
Arcadia,  identified  with  the  larger  need  of  inspiring  or 
importing  the  genius  of  architect,  sculptor,  and  painter. 
Sparta  had  an  early  school  of  sculpture,  influenced  by 
Cretan  teachers,  specimens  of  whose  work  may  be  seen 
in  the  Museum.  But  the  impulse  shrivelled  and  died 
in  an  uncongenial  atmosphere.  Nor  do  we  find  the 
Spartans  in  the  great  artistic  centuries  clamouring  for 
the  work  of  foreign  artists  as  did  the  towns  of  "  stupid  '* 
Boeotia.  The  British  School  of  Archasology  is  success- 
fully engaged  in  the  exploration  of  Sparta,  but  we  can- 
not anticipate  the  discovery  of  statues  like  the  Hermes 
of  Olympia  or  the  restoration  of  buildings  like  the 
Treasury  of  the  Athenians  at  Delphi. 

With  this  chastening  of  his  imagination  the  traveller 
may  turn  his  attention  to  the  few  discoveries  which  up 
to  this  time  have  been  made.  By  far  the  most  signifi- 
cant of  these  are  fragmentary  remains  of  the  temple  of 
Athena  Chalkioikos  and  of  the  sanctuary  of  Artemis 
Orthia.  Athena's  Brazen  House,  existing  in  some  form 
from  a  very  early  epoch,  was  so  associated  with  the 
public  life  of  the  city  that  it  became  known  to  foreign- 
ers as  an  object  of  peculiar  national  sentiment.  Euripi- 
des makes  the  Trojan  women  attribute  to  Helen  a 
desire  to  see  it  once  more  when,  praying  to  die  at  sea 
before  the  consummation  of  their  captivity,  they  seek 
to  involve  her  in  their  own  fate :  — 


SPARTA  439 

**And,  God,  may  Helen  be  there. 

With  mirrors  of  gold, 
Decking  her  face  so  fair, 
Girl-like;  and  hear  and  stare 

And  turn  death  cold, 
Never,  ah,  never  more 

The  hearth  of  her  home  to  see, 
Nor  sand  of  the  Spartan  shore. 

Nor  tombs  where  her  fathers  be 
Nor  Athena's  Brazen  Dwelling 

Nor  the  towers  of  Pitane."  * 

The  discovery  of  the  Temple  of  Artemis  is  of  great 
importance,  not  only  because  it  was  the  pivot  of  the 
religious  life  of  Sparta  but  because  its  eighth  century 
foundations,  excavated  beneath  the  traces  of  a  sixth 
century  structure,  may  belong  to  the  earliest  temple  in 
Greece.  The  image,  called  Orthia  because  it  had  been 
found  "upright"  in  a  thicket  of  willows,  was  believed 
by  the  Spartans  to  be  the  ancient  wooden  one  brought 
by  Orestes  and  Iphigeneia  from  the  land  of  the  Tauri- 
ans,  where  Iphigeneia,  rescued  by  Artemis  from  the 
sacrificial  altar  at  Aulis,  had  been  its  priestess  and 
guardian.  Euripides  naturally  preserves  the  Athenian 
tradition  that  the  image  was  brought  to  Brauron.  But 
Pausanias  presses  the  Spartan  claim  and  explains  the 
hoary  custom  of  annually  scourging  the  boys  in  front 
of  the  image  by  the  "relish  for  blood"  that  it  had  ac- 
quired in  the  days  when  human  sacrifices  were  offered 
to  it  in  a  barbarian  land. 
The  brutality  in  the  training  of  Spartan  youth  has 

*  Translated  by  Gilbert  Murray. 


440   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

bulked  so  large  in  tradition  that  local  associations  with 
it  perhaps  impress  the  traveller  more  sharply  than  any 
others.  In  the  southwestern  region  of  the  town,  near 
the  large  ruins  of  a  Roman  bath,  lay,  it  is  thought,  the 
Dromos  or  race  course,  and  the  Platanistas  or  Plane- 
tree  Grove,  surrounded  by  a  moat  and  entered  by  two 
bridges,  where  the  boys,  as  a  part  of  their  education, 
fought  very  savage  battles.  This  grove  is  an  excellent 
illustration  of  the  danger  of  claiming  too  much  for  the 
influence  on  the  mind  of  external  forms.  Plato  held 
that  even  the  shapes  of  trees  might  influence  the  spirit 
of  those  who  walked  among  them,  and  Walter  Pater, 
in  his  study  of  Lacedaemon,  compresses  the  idea  into 
a  definite  application  by  describing  the  plane  tree,  the 
characteristic  tree  of  Sparta,  as  "a  very  tranquil  and 
tranquillizing  object,  regally  spreading  its  level  or 
gravely  curved  masses  on  the  air."  Yet  within  a  circle 
of  these  tranquillizing  objects  Cicero,  and  later  Lucian 
and  Pausanias,  saw  the  Spartan  boys  fighting  with 
incredible  fury,  kicking,  scratching,  biting,  and  dying 
rather  than  confess  themselves  beaten. 

In  literature  as  well  as  in  the  plastic  arts  the  Spartans 
failed  to  express  themselves.  Only  four  poets  of  any 
widespread  fame  had  their  homes  in  Sparta,  and  no 
one  of  these  was  a  native  born.  Significantly,  too,  they 
all  lived  at  least  as  early  as  the  seventh  century,  at  the 
only  period  when  Spartan  life  showed  any  pliability. 
Individual  freedom  was  not  wholly  repressed,  and  an 
acknowledgment  of  the  graces  of  life  was  at  times  per- 


SPARTA  44t 

mitted.  Only  under  these  conditions  could  art  live  at 
all,  and  poetry  outran  sculpture  in  permanent  achieve- 
ment. This  was,  perhaps,  due  to  its  immediate  con- 
nection with  music  (including  dancing),  the  only  art 
which  the  later  Spartans,  although  they  did  not  give 
it  a  place  in  their  educational  curriculum,  seem  to  have 
appreciated. 

According  to  tradition,  Sparta's  poets  all  came  to  her 
in  response  to  a  call  for  foreign  aid  in  her  domestic 
broils.  Terpander  of  Lesbos  and  Thaletas  of  Crete 
successively  founded  two  musical  epochs  in  a  city  that 
was  intent  upon  controlling  its  serfs  and  developing 
its  soil.  Terpander's  service  was  almost  incalculable, 
for  he  modified  the  existing  lyre  into  an  instrument 
which  was  universally  used  until  the  fifth  century  and 
which  gave  the  first  great  impulse  to  vocal  music.  But 
"  the  strings  he  fingered  are  all  gone, "  and  of  the  verses 
that  he  wrote  we  have  only  a  few  fragments  to  recall 
his  life  in  Sparta,  his  invocations  at  public  festivals  of 
Apollo,  the  chief  god  of  the  city,  and  of  Castor  and 
Polydeuces,  the  city's  heroes,  and  his  praise  of  the  city 
herself :  — 

Bursts  into  bloom  there  the  warrior's  ardour, 
Clear  lifts  the  note  of  the  shrill-voiced  Muse. 

Justice  walks  down  the  wide  highways  as  Warder, 
Ever  their  Helper  glory  to  choose. 

Thaletas,  coming  from  an  island  where  the  dance 
had  been  important  from  prehistoric  times,  and  finding 
in  Sparta  the  same  friendly  atmosphere  of  open  Dorian 


442   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

life,  introduced  the  festival  of  the  Gymnopaedia,  in 
which  boys  displayed  the  perfected  beauty  of  their 
naked  bodies  in  athletic  dances  and,  by  means  of  formal 
songs  in  unison,  began  the  "choral  lyric. '^  This  poetic 
form,  passing  far  beyond  its  birthplace,  became  every- 
where in  Greece  the  chief  expression  of  public  worship 
of  gods  and  heroes  and  stimulated  the  powers  of  such 
poets  as  Simonides  and  Pindar  and  Bacchylides.  Tha- 
letas  was  lost  sight  of  in  his  greater  successor  Alcman, 
who  not  only  was  credited  with  the  creation  as  well  as 
with  the  cultivation  of  the  choral  lyric,  but  also  was 
adjudged  so  successful  in  all  his  work  that  Alexandrian 
scholars  included  him  in  their  canon  of  the  melic  poets, 
with  Pindar  and  Sappho. 

Terpander  and  Thaletas  are  little  more  than  names, 
familiar  only  to  those  who  study  origins.  Alcman  and 
Tyrtaeus,  the  poet  of  the  Messenian  War,  are  represen- 
tatives of  the  vital  poetry  which  Sparta  cherished  in 
her  supple  youth  before  her  ideals  had  matured  and  her 
life  had  irreparably  settled  into  its  narrow  grooves. 
Tyrtaeus  was  probably  an  Athenian,  even  if  it  is  mere 
legend  that  he  was  a  lame  schoolmaster  sent  by  Athens 
in  derision  when  Sparta  appealed  for  help  in  the  second 
Messenian  War.  Alcman  was  born  in  Sardis,  though 
probably  of  Hellenic  blood.  If  our  traditional  dates  are 
correct,  some  years  at  least  of  their  lives  must  have 
coincided.  Their  poetry  in  general  represented  differ- 
ent modes,  Tyrtaeus  being  the  earliest  master,  outside 
of  Ionia,  of  the  flute-accompanied  elegiac  distich,  the 


SPARTA  443 

lusty  heir  of  the  Homeric  hexameter,  while  Alcman 
established  many  of  the  more  delicate  measures  per- 
mitted by  the  versatile  lyre.  Their  poetic  purposes, 
however,  were  influenced  in  common  by  the  Dorian 
atmosphere  in  which  they  lived. 

In  Tyrtaeus  this  showed  itself  in  the  creation  of  mar- 
tial verse,  which  seems  to  have  been  powerfully  influ- 
ential in  arousing  into  active  service,  at  a  time  of  need, 
the  courage  and  the  perseverance  ingrained  in  the 
Doric  character.  But  his  own  racial  gift  made  it  im- 
possible that  his  poetry  should  be  confined  to  one 
country.  In  all  parts  of  Greece,  through  many  centu- 
ries, it  expressed  the  ideal  of  courage.  One  of  his  ana- 
paestic songs,  intended  to  be  sung  by  Spartan  soldiers 
as  they  marched  to  battle,  has  been  called  the  Mar- 
seillaise of  Greece.  A  fragment  of  it  still  stirs  the 
blood :  — 

Up!  youths  of  the  Spartan  nobles, 
Ye  citizen  sons  of  the  elders! 
With  the  left  hold  out  your  targes, 
And  fling  your  spears  with  boldness. 
Spare  not  your  lives.   To  spare  them 
Was  never  known  in  Sparta. 

The  Dorian  element  that  appealed  to  Alcman  was 
the  publicity  of  the  daily  life.  Men  lived  in  common, 
ate  at  large  public  tables,  trained  their  children  in 
groups,  and  believed  always  in  the  sacrifice  of  the 
individual  to  the  necessities  of  the  state.  Hence  they 
took  kindly  to  public  festivals  where  choruses  of  men 
and  women,  boys  and  girls  could  sing  hymns  that  gave 


444   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

expression  to  common  and  national  sentiments.  These 
hymns  Alcman  wrote  in  great  numbers.  Especially 
famous  and  never  displaced  by  later  poets  were  his  par- 
theneia,  written  for  the  choruses  of  Spartan  maidens 
whose  share  in  the  athletic  training  of  their  brothers 
made  them  the  most  beautiful  in  Greece.  Travellers 
in  Sparta  who  look  at  the  lifeless  ruins  of  the  Temple  of 
Artemis  will  rejoice  that  among  the  broken  fragments 
of  Alcman's  poetry  exist  seven  complete  strophes  of  a 
partheneion  which  probably  was  sung  before  the  temple 
at  one  of  the  festivals  of  the  goddess.  Helen  as  a  child 
had  danced  at  such  a  festival,  and  doubtless  many  a 
girl  in  Alcman's  chorus  was  pointed  out  by  the  sur- 
rounding crowd  as  her  fit  successor.  In  his  vigour  the 
poet  must  often  himself  have  led  the  dances  of  these 
tall,  straight  maidens.  In  his  old  age,  too  stiff  to  keep 
pace  with  their  lithe  movements,  he  added  to  a  song 
he  wrote  for  them  "des  images  aimables"  of  gallant 
regret : — 

Nay,  now  no  longer,  ye  sweet-voiced  maidens,  lovely  in  singing, 
Can  my  limbs  bear  me.   Would  God,  would  to  God,  that  a  hal- 
cyon were  I 
Who  with  his  married  mates  over  the  flowering  meadows  of  Ocean 
Fluttereth,  heart-free  of  trouble,  the  sea-purple  bird  of  the  spring- 
time. 

Verses  like  these  betray  an  un- Dorian  element  in  Alc- 
man's genius  which  came  from  his  ^olian  ancestry. 
It  crept  into  his  choral  lyrics  and  claimed  its  own  in 
his  lighter  verses.  Love  and  feasting  and  Bacchic  joy 
furnished  him  with  subjects.  No  other  set  of  lyric  frag- 


SPARTA  445 

ments  contains  so  many  traces  of  the  consciousness  of 
natural  beauties.  If  all  his  poetry  were  preserved,  it 
would  not  surprise  us  to  find  in  it  a  complete  and  sen- 
sitive response  to  the  extraordinary  loveliness  amid 
which  he  lived.  We  know  already  that  in  the  valley  of 
the  Eurotas  he  watched  sleep  descend  by  night  upon  the 
crests  and  crags  of  Taygetus  and  the  waiting  earth,* 
was  aware  of  the  dew  of  moonlit  evenings  and  the 
songs  of  birds,  and  felt  the  charms  of  the  alternating 
seasons,  especially  the  invigorating  bloom  of  spring. 

After  the  seventh  century  Sparta  entered  the  Greek 
world  with  an  offering  that  excluded  art  and  the  con- 
sciousness of  external  beauty.  This  was  her  mode  of 
life,  dedicated  to  one  austere  end.  The  citizens  of 
Sparta  were  a  small  body  of  men,  of  pure  Dorian  blood, 
freed  from  the  cares  of  self-support  by  the  serfs  or 
helots  who  were  descendants  of  the  original  possessors 
of  the  soil  they  tilled.  The  whole  time  of  the  masters 
could  be  devoted  to  the  state,  and  the  pivotal  demand 
of  the  state  was  for  strong,  brave  and  skilful  soldiers. 
All  life  was  a  vast  system  of  education  directed  toward 
the  end  of  military  efficiency.  This  explains  each  one 
of  their  customs :  the  exposure  of  sickly  infants  on  the 
slopes  .of  Mount  Taygetus ;  the  savage  training  of  their 
boys  and  the  severe  training  of  their  girls,  who  were  to 
be  the  mothers  of  soldiers;  the  repression  of  personal 
luxury,  the  equalizing  of  rich  and  poor,  the  detailed 
elimination  of  individual  pursuits.    Conservatism  was 

*  For  this  fragment  see  chapter  i,  p.  22. 


446   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

the  breath  of  their  life.  Their  institutions  were  of  very 
ancient  origin,  although  Lycurgus  is  now  regarded  as 
merely  a  legendary  designer,  and,  once  in  possession 
of  their  imaginations,  could  not  be  shaken  off  or  essen- 
tially modified.  At  the  crucial  period  following  the 
Peloponnesian  War  their  inabiUty  to  use  new  conditions 
played  havoc  with  their  political  opportunities.  Exclu- 
siveness  and  reserve  were  corollaries  of  their  single 
purpose.  Indifference  to  the  arts  of  peace  was  inevitable 
in  a  nation  consecrated  to  preparation  for  war. 

The  spectacle  presented  by  the  Spartans  never  failed 
to  excite  the  lively  interest  of  the  other  Greeks.  Men 
as  diverse  as  Xenophon  and  Aristotle  wrote  about  their 
institutions,  and  popular  judgments  were  always  in  evi- 
dence. An  opinion  which  was  probably  held  by  many 
just  before  the  Peloponnesian  War  is  contained  in 
Thucydides's  rehearsal  of  a  speech  made  in  Sparta  by 
a  Corinthian  delegate  to  the  conference  which  the  allies 
had  forced  upon  her.  Impatiently  he  tells  the  Spartans 
that  they  do  not  know  how  utterly  unlike  them  the 
Athenians  are :  — 

"  They  are  revolutionary  and  swift  to  plan  and  to 
execute  whatever  they  conceive,  but  you  are  all  for  con- 
serving the  existing  state  of  things,  inventing  no  new 
policy  and  in  action  not  even  coming  up  to  what  ne- 
cessity demands.  Again,  they  are  daring  beyond  their 
strength  and  run  risks  contrary  to  their  judgment,  and 
in  the  midst  of  terrors  they  are  full  of  hope.  Whereas 
your  way  is  to  act  within  your  strength,  to  have  con- 


SPARTA  447 

fidence  not  even  in  your  best  secured  plans  and,  when 
terrors  threaten,  to  think  that  you  will  never  be  set 
free  from  them.  Nay,  they  are  energetic  and  you  are 
laggards ;  they  go  abroad  while  you  cling  to  home." 

The  Spartan  king,  Archidamus,  justified  his  nation 
in  a  speech  made  in  a  private  session :  — 

**We  have  ever  dwelt  in  a  free  and  most  illustrious 
state,  and  this  policy  of  conservative  self-control  may 
well  be  equivalent  to  sound  reason.  We  have  become 
good  warriors  and  wise  in  counsel  by  our  careful  disci- 
pline ;  good  warriors,  because  self-control  best  quick- 
ens the  sense  of  honour,  and  from  this  noble  sense  of 
shame  springs^  courage;  wise  in  counsel,  because  we 
are  too  unlettered  to  be  superior  to  the  laws,  too 
severely  self-controlled  to  disobey  them." 

A  generation  earlier  Herodotus  had  paid  his  tribute 
to  the  Spartan  loyalty  to  law  in  his  story  of  the  conver- 
sation between  Xerxes,  meditating  his  attack  on  Greece, 
and  Demaratus,  the  ruined  Spartan  king  who  had  fled 
to  the  court  of  Darius.  Want,  the  exile  tells  the  mon- 
arch, had  always  been  a  fellow-dweller  in  his  land, 
but  courage  was  an  ally  they  had  gained  by  wisdom  and 
laws.  **The  Lacedaemonians  even  when  fighting  man 
for  man  are  inferior  to  none,  but  in  a  body  they  are  the 
best  of  all.  For  although  they  are  free  they  are  not 
wholly  free,  for  over  them  there  is  a  master.  Law,  whom 
they  fear  far  more  than  thine  fear  thee.  At  any  rate, 
they  always  do  his  bidding."  And  that  the  Athenians, 
with  their  reverence  for  law,  were  by  no  means  unwilling 


448   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

to  attribute  to  the  law-abiding  Spartans  a  love  of  lib- 
erty as  passionate  as  their  own  is  seen  in  another  story 
of  Herodotus.  Two  young  nobles  volunteered  to  go  to 
Xerxes  and  offer  their  lives  in  atonement  for  the  murder 
of  his  father's  heralds.  On  their  way  to  Persia  they 
were  entertained  by  the  governor  Hydames,  who,  call- 
ing attention  to  his  own  prosperity,  urged  them  to 
make  their  submission  to  the  king.  ''Hydarnes,"  they 
answered,  "thy  advice  to  us  is  one-sided.  Thou  hast 
tried  the  one  side,  but  art  inexperienced  in  the  other. 
For  thou  knowest  how  to  be  a  slave,  but  liberty  thou 
hast  not  tried  as  yet,  whether  it  be  sweet  or  no.  Shouldst 
thou  taste  it,  thou  wouldst  urge  us  to  fight  for  it  not  only 
with  the  spear  but  also  with  the  battle-axe." 

One  base  alloy  historians  and  poets  alike  found  in  the 
character  of  the  Spartans.  This  was  their  corruptibil- 
ity, their  sordid  greed  of  gain,  as  Aristophanes  called  it 
when  angered  by  their  rejection  of  peace.  To  the  same 
political  period  belong  savage  attacks  of  Euripides 
on  Spartan  treachery  and  dishonesty.  He  also  takes 
occasion  to  question  the  chastity  of  the  daughters  of 
Sparta : — 

No  Spartan  maiden,  even  wishing  it,  were  chaste! 
Not  they.   Their  homes  deserting,  with  their  chitons  slit 
Along  the  thigh,  with  robes  loose-girdled,  they  with  youths 
Share  in  the  foot-race  and  —  a  thing  I  can't  endure  — 
In  wrestling  bouts. 

Probably  this  exactly  expressed  the  sentiment  of  the 
average  Athenian,  theatre-goer,  accustomed  to  identify 


SPARTA  449 

the  virtue  of  women  with  their  obedience  to  conven- 
tional restrictions,  which  men  in  the  fifth  century  in- 
sisted upon  as  well  as  the  husband  in  Menander's 
play:  — 

You're  overstepping,  wife,  a  married  woman's  bounds, 
The  front  door  passing;  for  to  ladies  of  good  birth 
The  house  door  is  the  limit  by  convention  set. 
This  chasing  and  this  running  out  into  the  street, 
Your  billingsgate  still  snapping,  Rhode,  is  for  dogs! 

Men  possessed  of  these  ideas  could  not  appreciate  that 
in  Sparta,  in  the  great  periods,  freedom  and  sobri- 
ety went  hand  in  hand.  Aristotle,  in  his  arraignment 
of  the  license  and  luxury  of  the  Spartan  women  as 
one  of  the  defects  of  the  Spartan  system,  may  have 
been  dealing  with  some  special  facts  of  his  own  day. 
In  the  fourth  century  Sparta  had  in  certain  ways  dete- 
riorated. 

But  this  deterioration  could  not  do  more  than  blur 
the  outlines  of  a  system  of  life  which  for  three  centuries 
had  stood  before  the  world,  a  **  whole  serene  creation." 
Comic  writers  might  show  up  the  boorishness  of  the 
unlearned  Spartans,  and  irritable  tragic  poets  might 
vent  their  spleen  on  their  country's  enemy,  but  in  the 
end  Spartan  institutions  had  to  be  respected  and 
admired.  Indeed,  many  Athenians  affected  a  special 
predilection  for  qualities  unlike  their  own  and  "lacon- 
ized"  in  dress,  manner,  and  speech.  Philosophy  flour- 
ished in  Sparta,  Plato  tells  us,  and  with  it  a  rare  skill 
in  conversation.  The  typical  Spartan,  after  pretending 


450   GREEK  LANDS  AND  LETTERS 

that  he  could  not  talk,  would  throw  into  the  discussion, 
*'  like  a  clever  javelin-thrower,"  a  remark  ''worth  listen- 
ing to,  brief,  compressed." 

Thinkers  as  well  as  Laconomaniacs  displayed  enthu- 
siasm for  Spartan  ideas.  Aristotle,  to  be  sure,  while 
praising  the  love  of  education  among  the  Lacedaemo- 
nians, deplored  their  absorption  in  one  object  and  also 
complained  that  they  preferred  the  good  they  gained 
to  the  virtue  by  means  of  which  they  gained  it.  But, 
true  as  this  may  be,  the  nobiHty  of  the  effort,  the  flawless 
harmony  of  details,  the  perfect  adjustment  of  the  sys- 
tem to  the  use  for  which  it  was  intended,  resulted  in  a 
product  as  truly  Greek  as  is  a  Doric  temple  or  an  Attic 
trilogy.  It  is  not  strange  that  its  apotheosis  is  found  in 
the  ideal  state  of  the  great  visionary  of  Athens.  Plato's 
''Republic"  is  Sparta  idealized  and  interpreted  by  an 
Athenian. 

A  state  combining  the  character  of  the  Dorians  and 
the  genius  of  the  lonians  history  has  failed  to  produce. 
Isocrates  cherished  a  hope  that  Athens  and  Sparta 
might  divide  the  headship  of  a  gloriously  united  Greece. 
After  Chaeronea  he  was  even  far-sighted  enough  to 
plead  for  the  willing  union  of  Hellas  under  Philip  of 
Macedon.  Hopes  like  these  proved  either  futile  or  too 
mean.  But  his  pride  in  the  spiritual  achievements  of 
his  own  city  has  been  approved  by  Time, "  the  Inspector- 
General  of  men's  deeds."  The  institutions  of  Sparta 
like  every  other  product  of  the  Greek  mind  went  into 
the  crucible  of   Athens.    And  this  city,  triumphing 


SPARTA  451 

beyond  the  orator's  boast,  "has  caused  the  name  of 
Hellene  to  seem  to  be  matter  no  longer  of  birth  but 
of  intellect,  and  has  made  them  bear  it  whose  claim  is 
that  of  culture  rather  than  of  origins." 


I 


APPENDIX 

Usually  only  the  first  line  of  citations  is  noted. 

Chapter  I.  Page  2  (third  paragraph)  Cf.  Curtius, 
Greek  History,  i,  p.  23  and  passim.  Plato,  TimcBUSj  22  B. 
3  Quotation  from  Curtius,  Greek  History,  i,  p.  32.  5 
Hatzidakis,  Neugriechische  Grammatik,  p.  4.  9  Quota- 
tion from  Tozer,  Geography  of  Greece,  p.  44.  Cf.  passim. 
10-12  iEschylus,  Agamemnon,  281.  17-18  yEschylus, 
Agamemnon,  454.  19  Homer,  Odyssey,  vi,  130;  v,  51; 
Iliad,  VIII,  553.  20  Homer,  Odyssey,  vi,  162.  Pindar, 
Olymp.,  II,  70.  21  Pindar,  Olymp.,  vi,  54.  22  ^schy- 
lus,  Agamemnon,  1390.  23  ^schylus,  Agamemnon,  563; 
Prometheus,  i,  88.  24  Sophocles,  Philoctetes,  936;  (E(/j- 
/>w^  Tyrannus,  204.  25  Aristophanes,  Clouds,  275.  26 
Aristophanes,  Peace,  571.  yEschylus,  Agamemnon,  142. 
Euripides,  Hippolytus,  70.  27  Euripides,  Trojan  Women, 
845 ;  Bacchce,  1084.  Plato,  Phcedrus,  229,  230.  28  Gree^ 
Anthology,  Pal.,  vn,  669.  Very  probably  by  Plato;  App. 
Plan.,  13,  attributed  to  Plato,  but  probably  of  later  date. 
Theocritus,  Idyl,  vii,  134. 

Chapter  II.  Page  37  Thucydides,  vi,  30.  38  ^Eschy- 
\us,  Agamemnon,  763;  433.  39  Lucian,  When  My  Ship 
Comes  In  (Navigium),  5.  43  ^schylus,  Suppliants,  715. 
44  Isocrates,  Areopagiticus,  66.  45  Plato,  Symposium, 
173  B.  Lucian,  Navigium,  35.  46  Xenophon,  Helle- 
nica,  II,  4,  II.  47-48  Lysias,  Against  Eratosthenes,  4. 
49  Menander,  Fragments.  50  Plato,  Republic,  439,  E. 
54  Greek  Anthology,  Pal.,  vii,  639. 


454  APPENDIX 

Chapter  III.  Page  57  Euripides:  Suppliants,  403- 
408.  Jebb,  Modern  Greece,  p.  70.  59  Isocrates,  Panegy- 
ricus,  23,  24.  62  ^lian,  apud  Stoh.  Serm.,  xxiv,  53.  For 
Solon's  apothegm  cf.  Herodotus,  i,  32;  ^schylus,  Aga- 
memnon, 928.  63  "The  Guardian,"  cf.  Lucian:  The 
Fisher,  21.  64  Plutarch,  Life  of  Solon  (end).  66  Euri- 
pides, Trojan  Women,  801.  67  G.  Murray,  Rise  oj  the 
Greek  Epic,  p.  173.  68  Homer,  Iliad,  n,  557-558.  Lucian, 
True  History,  11,  20.  69  Dyer,  The  Gods  in  Greece,  p. 
125.  See  Gardner  and  Jevons,  Greek  Antiquities,  p.  296. 
72  iEschylus,  Pema«5,  241-242.  Herodotus,  vii,  105.  73 
Lucian,  Twice  Accused,  11. 

Chapter  IV.  Page  74  Plato,  Republic,  532,  C. 
Howe,  Greek  Revolution  (1828),  p.  340.  76  Plato,  Phce- 
drus,  279  B.  78  Cf.  Gardner,  Ancient  Athens,  p.  256. 
80  Bayard  Taylor,  Travels  in  Greece  and  Russia  (1859), 
p.  39.  81  Homer,  7/ia(/,  n,  546-551.  %2  Komtr,  Odyssey, 
vn,  78.  Herodotus,  vi,  137.  83  Herodotus,  \aii,  41;  55. 
Aristophanes,  Lysistrata,  758.  84  Aristophanes,  Birds, 
828.  85  Demosthenes,  597,  8.  Aristophanes,  Knights, 
132 1.  85-86  Aristophanes,  Lysistrata,  256,  641.  88 
Plutarch,  Life  oj  Pericles,  13.     Lucian,  The  Fisher,  39. 

Chapter  V.    Page  91  Thucydides,  11,  64.     92  ^Eschy- 
\\is,  Persians,  TfA*].     Euripides,  ilfe(ie(Z,  826.    Demosthenes 
Olynthiac,  ni,  25,  29.     103  Second  paragraph,  cf.  Lucian 
Cock,  26.     104  iEschylus,  Eumenides,  328.     105  ^schy 
lus,  Eumenides,  778;   and  1032.     106  Cf.  J.  I.  Manatt 
The  Pauline  Areopagus,  Andover  Rev.,  1892.     107  Plato 
Phcedo,  114,  C.  ff.     Pindar,  Olymp.,  n.     108  Plato,  Apol 
ogy,  41,  C.     Aristophanes,  Wasps,  31  ff.     109  Plato,  Re- 
public, 514.     See  note  on  p.  129  of  J.Harrison's  Primitive 
Athens,  and  cf.  J.  H.  Wright,  Harv.  Stud.  Class.  Phil., 
1906,    pp.  131-142.     See  also   below,  chap,   vii,   p.  164. 


APPENDIX  455 

Barathrum.  See  Aristophanes,  Frogs,  574;  Herodotus, 
vn,  133;  Plato,  Gorgias,  516,  E.  no  Cf.  Gardner,  An- 
cient Athens,  p.  127;  Plato,  Apology,  36,  D;  Plutarch, 
Aristides,  27.  iio-iii  Aristophanes,  Peace,  1183;  Birds, 
450.  Ill  'BdLCohyWdes,  Fragments.  Lysias,  Or.  xxiv,  20. 
112  Aristophanes, />a5^iw,  and 5Sir(/5,  1 080- 1 08 1.  Menan- 
der,  Fragments.  114  ^Eschylus,  Seven  Against  Thebes, 
854.  115  Thucydides,  11,  34.  115-116  Thucydides,  11, 
52,  54 ;  Sophocles,  (Edipus  Tyrannus,  171.  117  Aristopha- 
nes, Clouds,  17,  18  &  56;  Wasps,  246.  118  Demosthenes, 
Against Conon,g.  i2o'L\ic\dLn,  Icaromenippus,  16.  Aris- 
tophanes, Birds,  142 1 ;  Wasps,  835.  123  Homeri(fHymn 
to  Dionysus,  51.  Bacchylides,  xix,  5.  123-124  Pindar, 
Fragments.  Aristophanes,  Acharnians,  636.  Euripides, 
Medea,  824.  125  Plato,  Phmdrus,  247,  A;  Republic, 
592,  A,  B. 

Chapter  VI.  Page  127  Pindar,  Olymp.,  vi,  i.  Aris- 
tophanes, Wasps,  600.  Homer,  Odyssey,  xv,  459.  128 
Aristophanes,  Frogs,  171.  129  Homer,  Iliad,  xi,  558. 
130  Euripides,  Alcestis,  252,  433,  575.  Homer,  Odyssey, 
xrii,  221.  131  Homeric  Hymn  to  Aphrodite.  Euripides  ( ?), 
Rhesus,  546.  Homer,  Iliad,  iii,  10;  viii,  555;  iii,  198. 
Homer,  Odyssey,   xi,  444.     Aristophanes,    Wasps,    179. 

133  Homer,  Iliad,  xviii,  414.     Plato,  Republic,  iii,  404. 

134  Homer,  Odyssey,  xvii,  205.  Corner,  Iliad,  xxii,  147. 
Homer,  Odyssey,  vi,  70;  vii,  19.  Homeric  Hymn  to 
Demeter,  105.  135  Euripides,  Electra,  54.  136  Aris- 
tophanes, ThesmophoriazuscB,  i.  139  Plato,  Laws,  653. 
140  Sophocles,  (Edipus  Tyrannus,  1489.  Aristophanes, 
ThesmophoriazuscB.  Menander,  Epitrepontes.  Plato, 
Lysis. 

Chapter  VII.  Page  144  Aristophanes,  Clouds,  300. 
Aristophanes,  Ff (7^ J,  1056.    Plato,  Cri/ia^,  112.    145  Theo- 


456  APPENDIX 

phrastus,  De  Signis  Tempestatum,  i,  20,  24.  Aristophanes, 
Clouds,  299-313 ;  and  see  chap,  i,  p.  25.  146-147  Sopho- 
cles, (Edipus  Colonetis,  668-687;  16-18;  694-701.  147 
Cf.  chap,  iii,  p.  65.  148  Plato,  Phcedo,  115,  C.  Antipa- 
ter,  Anth.  Groeca,  ed.  ab  De  Bosch,  Lib.  in.  Tit.  xxxii. 
149  Xenophon,  Hellenica,  fi,  4,  2-4.  150  Simmias,  Anth. 
Pal.,  VII,  22.  151  Aristophanes,  Acharnians,  34-36;  179; 
257-263;  325-348.  152  Menander.  Parts  of  four  come- 
dies of  Menander  were  found  in  Egypt  1905,  published 
1907  (Lefebvre).  For  translation  of  this  scene  see  N.  Y. 
Nation,  p.  266,  Mar.  19,  1908.  154  iEschylus,  Seven 
against  Thebes,  587 .  156  Pkto,  Republic,  45 1 ,  A ;  Pindar, 
Pyth.,  X,  41-44.  Dioscorides,  Anth.  Pal.,  vii,  410.  158 
Demosthenes,  De  Corona,  208.  159  Epitaph  of  yEschylus. 
See  Vita  yEschyli,  Medicean  MS.  Cynosarges  Gymnasium. 
The  site  is  now  put  somewhere  near  the  present  American 
and  British  Schools.  Cf.  Gardner,  Anc.  Ath.,  ^28.  160 
Herodotus,  vi,  120.  161  yEschylus,  Persians,  238.  Plu- 
tarch, Lysander,  xvi.  162  Lysias,  xxi,  5.  Aristophanes, 
Knights,  ^^o-$6o.  16$  Homer,  Odyssey,  111,2^8.  Sopho- 
cles, Ajax,  1 2 16  ff.  Herod.,  vi,  115.  Plato,  Crito,  43,  and 
Phcedo,  58,  B.  164  Zoster :  Herodotus,  viii,  107.  Vari :  cf. 
Frazer  on  Paus.,  i,  xxxii,  and  see  note  on  chap,  v,  p.  109. 
Solon :  cf.  chap,  iii,  p.  58.  165  Demosthenes,  De  Falsa  Le- 
gatione,  251.  166-168  ^Eschylus,  P^maw^,  447-449 ;  386 
passim  to /^2i',  274-277;  821-822;  923;  Agamemnon,  658- 
660.  169  Timotheus,  Per^dg,  105.  VXuiSiTch,  Aristides,K. 
Chapter  VHI.  Page  174  Euripides,  Suppliants,  30. 
175  Euripides,  Helena,  1301.  176  Strabo,  x,  3,9.  178 
Sophocles,  (Edipus  Coloneus,  1146.  Euripides,  Ion,  1078. 
Herodotus,  viii,  65.  179  Aristophanes,  Frogs,  341.  180 
Aristotle,  fragment,  quoted  by  Synesius.  181  Pindar, 
fragment.      Sophocles,    fragment.      Euripides,    Hercules 


APPENDIX  457 

Furens,  613.  Isocrates,  Patiegyricus,  28.  Aristophanes, 
Frogs,  455 .  182  Andocides,  On  the  Mysteries,  3 1 .  Plato, 
Phcedrus,  251  A.  183  Alcman  (probably).  184  Aris- 
tophanes, Frogs,  338,  397.     185  Plato,  PhcBdo,  69  C. 

Chapter  IX.  Page  186  Pindar,  Pyth.,  vm,  21.  Plu- 
tarch, Life  of  Pericles,  156.  187  Lucian,  Navigium,  15. 
Thucydides,  vi,  32.  189  Pindar,  Nem.,  vii,  78.  Bac- 
chylides,  Epinician  Odes,  13.  190  Pindar,  Isth.,  iv,  23; 
VII,  16;  IV,  49;  V,  23.  Pindar,  Nem.,  v,  23.  191  Pin- 
dar, Pyth.,  VIII,  92. 

Chapter  X.  Page  192  Herodotus,  i,  5.  193  Pindar, 
Olymp.,  XIII,  65.  194  Homer,  Iliad,  ix,  529.  Bacchyli- 
des,  Epinician  Odes,  5.  Euripides,  Meleager  (not  extant). 
Lucian,  Lifers-end  of  Peregrinus,  30.  196  ^Eschylus, 
Choephoroi,  602.  197  Theognis,  667,  825,  1197.  198 
Thucydides,  i,  140.  Aristophanes,  Acharnians,  509.  Iso- 
crates, DePace,  117.  199  Greek  Anthology,  Pal.,  vn,  496. 
200  Lucian,  Marine  Dialogues,  9.  Euripides,  Medea, 
1282.  201  Greek  Anthology,  Pal.,  vi,  349;  vi,  223.  Aris- 
totle, Politics,  1327  a,  1330  b.  Bacchylides,  Fragment. 
202  Homer,  Iliad,  11,  570.  203  Pindar,  Olymp.,  xiii,  4. 
Aristophanes,  Frogs,  439.  Homer,  Odyssey,  xi,  593.  204 
Homer,  Iliad,  vi,  144.  Pindar,  Olymp.,  xiii,  63.  205 
Plato,  Republic,  ix,  579  E.  208  Herodotus,  i,  24. 
210  Pindar,  Olymp.,  xiii,  6.  211  Greek  Anthology,  Pal., 
IX,  151.  213  Plutarch,  On  Garrulity,  xiv.  Lucian,  How 
to  Write  History,  3.  215  Euripides,  Trojan  Women,  205. 
216  Thucydides,  viii,  7. 

Chapter  XI.  Page  218  Euripides,  Andromache,  1085. 
Pindar,  Pyth.,  vm,  61.  219  Homer,  Odyssey,  vm,  79. 
^schylus,  Prometheus,  679.  Sophocles,  (Edipus  Tyr.,  70; 
(Edipus  Col.,  84.  220  Homer,  Odyssey,  iv,  i.  -(Eschylus, 
Persians,  568.     ^schylus,  Prometheus,  680.    Herodotus, 


458  APPENDIX 

passim.  221  Aristophanes,  Knights,  1007.  222  Hero- 
dotus, VII,  139.  Sophocles,  (Edipus  Tyr.,  711.  224 
iEschines,  Against  Ctesiphon,  115.  227  Homer,  Iliad,  1, 
44.  Pindar,  Pyth.,  1,  i.  228  Himerius,  quoted  in  Whar- 
ton's Sappho,  p.  165.  ^schylus,  Eumenides,  13.  Plato, 
Protagoras,  343.  230  ^schylus,  Eumenides,  23,  i.  Eu- 
ripides, Iphigeneia  in  Tauris,  1234.  232  Homer,  Odys- 
sey, XIX,  392.  Euripides,  Ion,  82.  234  Strabo,  ix,  3. 
237  Euripides,  Andromache,  1085.  Pindar,  Pyth.,  iv,  4. 
Demosthenes,  Philippics,  iii.  240  Plato,  Republic,  x, 
616.  243  Pindar,  Pyth.,  m,  75.  244  Herodotus,  viii,  35. 
248  Cf.  Myers,  Pindar,  p.  10.  249  Pindar,  Olymp., 
XII,  5- 

Chapter  XII.  Page  250  Sophocles,  (Edipus  Tyr., 
1398.  251  Aristophanes,  Thesmophoriazusce,  1180.  252 
Herodotus,  vni,  37.  259  Sophocles,  (Edipus  Tyr.,  800. 
260  iEschylus,  Agamemnon,  11 11.  YiomeT,  Odyssey,  xix, 
518.  261  Homer,  Odyssey,  xi,  576.  262  Demosthenes, 
On  the  Crown,  218.      265  Greek    Anthology,  Pal.,  vn, 

245- 
Chapter  XIII.    Page  266  Pindar,  Isth.,  vi,  i.    267 

Plutarch,  On  the  Malice  of  Herodotus.  Homer,  Iliad,  iv, 
384;  n,  495.  Homeric  Hymns  to  Apollo  and  Hermes. 
268  ^schylus.  Seven  Against  Thebes,  296.  Sophocles, 
Antigone,  1124.  Euripides,  Bacchce,  passim.  271  Pin- 
dar, Olymp.,  VI,  89.  275  Pindar,  Pyth.,  iii,  87;  Isth.,  i, 
i;  Nem.,  i,  ^^.  276  Sophocles,  Trachinice.  Sophocles, 
Antigone,  114S;  Euripides,  Bacchce,  passim.  277  Euripi- 
des, Bacchce,  233.  278  Aristophanes,  Thesmophoriazusce, 
990.  279  Euripides,  Bacchce,  64,  105,  677.  281  Sopho- 
cles, (Edipus  Tyr.,  1026.  283  Sophocles,  (Edipus  Tyr., 
1 186,  1524.  284  ^schylus.  Seven  Against  Thebes,  524, 
686.     286  Euripides,   Phoinissce,  1009.     Sophocles,   An- 


APPENDIX  459 

tigone,  450.  287  Sophocles,  (Edipus  Tyr.,  867.  Sopho- 
cles, Antigone,  781,  800.  288  Pindar,  Isth.,  vii,  5.  291 
Pindar,  Isth.,  vii,  5.  Plutarch,  Apothegms.  293  Pindar^ 
Pyth.,  Ill,  79.     295  Plutarch,  Apothegms. 

Chapter  XIV.  Vsigeigb  B.es\o^,Theogony,i.  Plato, 
Symposium,  221  A.  297  Pindar,  Pyth.,  i,  78.  ^Eschylus, 
Persians,  484.  Herodotus,  ix,  16.  298  Herodotus,  ix, 
25.  299  Pindar,  Pyth.,  i,  77.  ^schylus,  Persians,  813. 
Simonides,  Greek  Anthology,  Pal.,  vii,  253,  251.  300 
Thucydides,  iii,  53.  301  Plutarch,  On  the  decay  of  ora- 
cles. On  the  dcBmon  of  Socrates.  A  friend  of  Plutarch,  not 
Plutarch  himself,  visited  the  oracle  of  Trophonius.  302 
Pindar,  Olymp.,  xiv,  i.  304  Cicero,  Against  Verres,  iv, 
2,59.  SO*j  Vlato, Republic, X, 6 II.  Homer, Iliad, n,  ^o^, 
308  Euripides,  Iphigeneia  in  Aulis,  1386.  ^schylus, 
Agamemnon,  220.  ^og  JEschylus,  Agamemnon,  iSi.  310 
Hesiod,  Works  and  Days,  640.  311  Cf.  Symonds'  Greek 
Poets,  I,  chap.  5.    314  Plutarch,  Life  0}  Aristides,  21. 

Chapter  XV.  Page  316  Iliad,  i,  156.  317-322 
Herodotus,  vii,  210-233.  3^8  Cf.  Pausanias,  i,  4,  1-4; 
X,  xix-xxiii. 

Chapter  XVI.  Page  323  Alpheus  of  Mitylene,  Anth. 
Pal.,  IX,  Id ;  sometimes  attributed  to  Antipater  of  Thes- 
salonica.  330  Herodotus,  i,  i.  331  Lucian,  Charon, 
23.  332  Pausanias,  11,  15,  with  Frazer's  notes.  333 
Pindar,  Nemean,  x,  28;  vi,  12.  335  Thucydides,  i,  9; 
Iliad,  II,  108.  Euripides,  Iphigeneia  in  Aul.,  1498.  Iphi- 
geneia in  T.,  845-846.  336-343  iEschylus,  Agamemnon, 
40-47;  320;  154;  334-337;  818-820;  905-911;  947;  958- 
962;  passim,  973;  1327-1330;  1379-1387;  1548-1559; 
577-579.  341  Cf.  Browning's  Agamemnon  for  several 
phrases.  342  Euripides,  £/ec/m,  54;  77.  JEschyXws,  Choeph. 
1061.     343  Iliad,  IV,  52.     Pythagoras:  Horace,  Od..,  i,  28, 


46o  APPENDIX 

II.  lamblichus,  Life  of  Pythag.,  63,  and  see  Lucian,  Cocky 
16,  17.  Herodotus,  i,  31.  344  ^schylus,  Suppliants, 
954-956.  345  ^schylus,  Prometheus,  854-869.  346 
Lucian,  Marine  Dialogues,  6.  347  Herodotus,  i,  82; 
Lucian,  Charon,  24.  348  Euripides,  Orestes^,  53-55. 
349-350  Lucian,  Marine  Dialogues,  12.  Euripides,  Tro- 
jan Women,  1081-1088.  352  Isyllus,  cf.  Smyth,  Melic 
Poets,  p.  528.  355  Strabo,  viii,  cap.  6,  12.  356  Lucian, 
Cataplus,  18.     Plutarch,  Lije  of  Demosthenes,  xxx. 

Chapter  XVII.  Page  358  Pindar,  Olymp.,  iii,  27. 
Homer,  Iliad,  n,  612.  360  Homer,  Iliad,  11,  607.  361 
Polybius,  XXIV,  15.  365  Greek  Anthology,  App.  Plan.,  188. 
366  Herodotus,  viii,  26.  371  Greek  Anthology,  Pal.,  ix, 
314;  App.  Plan.  188.  374  Xenophon,  Anabasis,  ^,  ^,  10. 
Homer,  Odyssey,  ¥,272.  377  Hesiod,  Theogony,  775.  380 
Pindar,  Olymp.,  vx,  100.  Homeric  Hymn  to  Pan,  30. 
Homer,  Odyssey,  ni,  497.  381  Sappho ;  Homer.  See  chap, 
i,  19,  21.    385  iEschylus,  Agamemnon,  519. 

Chapter  XVIII.  Page  388  Pindar,  Olymp.,  ni,  19. 
390  Lucian,  Marine  Dialog.,  3.  Strabo,  vi,  cap.  2, 4.  391 
Antigonus  Carystus,  Historia  Mirab.,  140  (155).  392 
Xenophon,  Anabasis,  TV,  viii,  26.  397  Odyssey,  v,  79; 
Lucian,  Jupiter  as  Tragedian,  10,  11.  403  Lucian,  He- 
rodotus, I.  Herodotus,  vni,  26.  408  Lucian,  Council  of 
the  Gods,  12.  Pindar,  Olymp.,  n,  51.  410  Herodotus, 
VI,  103.  411  Pindar,  0/>'m/>.,  I,  18.  Bacchylides,  v,  37- 
45,  and  178-186.  412  Pindar,  Olymp.,  i,  86.  413  Pin- 
dar, Olymp.,  I,  28.  415  iEschylus,  Agamemnon,  341. 
416  Pindar,  Olymp.,  iv,  i;  vi,  75;  vi,  91.  417  Pindar, 
Olymp.,  XIII,  92 ;  iii,  441  xi  (x),  45.  418  Pindar,  Olymp., 
XI  (x),  72 ;  73-76;  XIV,  20.  419  Pindar,  Olymp.,  vii.  420 
VldXo,  Republic,  621,  C,T>.  421  Bacchylides,  vi.  423 
iEschylus,  Prometheus,  95. 


APPENDIX  461 

Chapter  XIX.  Page  425  Homer,  Odyssey,  m,  491. 
429  Thucydides,  iv,  40. 

Chapter  XX.  Page  431  Homer,  Odyssey,  iv,  i.  432 
Pindar,  fragment.  Sophocles,  Ajax,  8.  Homer,  Odyssey, 
IV,  603.  Euripides,  Helen,  348;  Iphigeneia  in  Tauris, 
132.  433-434  Homer,  Odyssey,  iv.  Herodotus,  vi,  61. 
436  ^schylus,  Agamemnon,  650.  437  Thucydides,  i,  10. 
Polybius,  V,  22.  440  Lucian,  Anacharsis,  38.  Cicero, 
Tusculan  Disputations,  5,  27.  446  Thucydides,  i,  70. 
447  Herodotus,  vn,  104,  135.  448  Euripides,  Andro- 
mache, 595.  449  Plato,  Protagoras,  342.  450  Aristotle, 
Politics,  127 1  B.  Isocrates,  Letter  to  Philip;  Panegyricus, 
51- 

Note  on  pages  153-5  "Egripo."  Strictly  "Euripus" 
was  applied  only  to  the  narrower  channel  between  Aulis  and 
Chalkis.  Also  used  of  the  whole  southern  channel:  see 
Bury's  and  Frazer's  Maps  of  Attica.  That  the  name  Euri- 
pus  was  early  extended  to  the  whole  southern  channel  may, 
perhaps,  be  inferred  from  the  modem  name  "Egripo"  ap- 
plied to  this  lower  arm  between  Negropont  and  Boeotia  and 
Attica. 

Note  on  page  41 "  Tomb  of  Themistocles."  J.  Dragatsis 
in  a  monograph  (Athens,  1910)  has  brought  forward  a 
number  of  arguments  to  prove  that  the  "  Themistocleum'* 
is  represented  by  the  circular  ruin  at  the  water's  edge  out- 
side the  entrance  to  the  harbour  on  the  northern  side. 

Note  on  page  344  "Archaic  statues."  Von  Premerstein, 
director  of  the  Austrian  School  of  Archaeology  in  Athens, 
has  ingeniously  deciphered  (19 10)  the  inscription  on  these 
statues,  thus  proving  definitely  that  they  represented 
Cleobis  and  Biton. 


INDEX 


Acamania,  13,  193,  321. 

Achaea,  13,  194,  326,  373,  435. 

Achaeans,  14,  324. 

Acharnae,  148,  150  ff. 

Acrocorinth,  8,  212,  214;  view 
from,  202. 

Acropolis,  see  under  Athens. 

iEgaleus,  Mt.,  149,  164,  173, 
177. 

iEgean,  i,  2,  5,  6,  10,  13,  17,  57, 
325,  353, 

iEgina,  144,  162,  186-91. 

iEgospotami,  loi,  102. 

yEmilius  Paulus,  235. 

/Eolians,  328;  in  Bceotia,  310. 

^schines,  place  in  literature,  97; 
cited,  224. 

iEschylus,  at  Delphi,  237;  at 
Eleusis,  181;  at  Marathon, 
158-9;  character  of,  125; 
competition  with,  328;  influ- 
ence of,  104,  415;  place  in  liter- 
ature, 95 ;  treatment  of  nature, 
22;  youth  of,  70  ff.;  cited,  10, 
II.  38,  43.  64,  72,  83-4,  91, 104, 
154.  155.  159.  161,  166,  167, 
168,  196,  230,  246,  268,  283-5, 
292,  297,  299,  308,  309,  336, 

342,  344,  385,  415.  436. 

iEtolia,  13,  193. 

Africa,  220,  239. 

Akte,  of  Argolis,  330,  351;  of 
Piraeus,  36,  42,  55. 

Alcibiades,  at  Delium,  296;  in- 
fluence of,  loi;  parody  of 
Mysteries,  176;  picture  of,  77; 
Sicilian  expedition,  37. 

Alcman,  442  ff.;  cited,  18,  22, 182, 
444-5- 


Alexander,  at  Chaeronea,  262;  at 
Isthmus,  2 1 7 ;  at  Olympia,  391 ; 
death  of,  3;  empire  of,  99; 
statue  at  Olympia,  402. 

Alexandrian  period,  4. 

Alpheus,  god  and  river,  231,  328, 
369,  375. 379,  381. 388-91, 404. 

Altis,  at  Marathon,  158;  at  Olym- 
pia, 388,  395,  402-5. 

Amorgos,  7. 

Amphiaraus,  sanctuary  of,  153-4. 

Amphictyony,  Delphic,  224,  238. 

Amphissa,  223. 

Amyclae,  434. 

Anacapri,  2. 

Anacreon,  70. 

Anaxagoras,  96. 

Andocides,  place  in  literature,  96; 
cited,  181. 

Andritsena,  378,  381-2. 

Andros,  7. 

Anthedon,  306-7. 

Anthesteria,  141. 

Anthology,  Greek,  4-5;  cited, 
28,  54,  147,  150,  156,  171,  201, 
211, 265, 299,  300,323, 371, 373. 

Antiphon,  96. 

Antisthenes,  99. 

Antoninus  Pius,  364. 

Aphaea,  temple  of,  188. 

Aphrodite,  397,  434;  at  Piraeus, 
54 ;  on  Mt.  Ida,  131 ;  of  Melos,  5. 

Apollo,  at  Olympia,  397;  at 
Ptoon,  301;  Delphic  legends, 
230  ff. ;  god  of  prophecy,  218  ff. ; 
Hymn  to,  231 ;  in  Alcestis,  130; 
in  Eumenides,  105  ff. ;  in  Hymn 
to  Hermes,  368  ff . ;  significance 
at  Delphi,   246  ff.;  statue  at 


464 


INDEX 


Olympia,  399, 400 ;  —  at  Sparta, 
441;  summer  festival  of,  136; 
temple  at  Bassae,  382  flf. ;  —  at 
Corinth,  202,  203,  207,  213;  — 
at  Delphi,  237-8;  — on  Sacred 
Way,  178;  —at  Thebes,  282, 
292 ;  —  in  Vale  of  Tempe,  245. 

Appian,  43. 

Arachneum,  Mt.,  336. 

Arachova,  30,  252,  253  ff.,  381. 

Arcadia,  14,  29,  131,  220,  239, 
358-87,  425,  429. 

Arcesilas,  239. 

Archidamus,  240,  447. 

Areopagus,  see  under  Athens. 

Arethusa,  390,  391, 

Argolic  Gulf,  324,  330. 

Argolid,  Argolis,  8,  13,  162,  323- 

57. 

Argos,  10,  II,  221,  239,  325,  327, 
329-30,  346,  435.  436- 

Arion,  208-9. 

Aristides,  100,  124. 

Aristodemus,  428. 

Aristogeiton,  71. 

Aristomenes,  428,  430. 

Aristophanes,  place  in  literature, 
95;  treatment  of  nature,  24; 
cited,  25,  26,  35,  65,  70,  71,  83, 
85-6,  108,  112,  117,  120,  127, 
128,  131,  132,  136,  144,  145, 
150,  151,  161,  162,  179,  184, 
221,  251,  448. 

Aristotle,  Lyceum  of,  119 ;  philos- 
ophy,97  ff.;  cited,  66,  180,  201, 
212,  446,  449,  450. 

Aroanius,  river,  375. 

Artemis,  24;  at  Olympia,  397; 
Brauronia,  86;  hymn  to,  223;  in 
Arcadia,  365,  373,  374;  in  Hip- 
polytus,  26,  355;  on  Taygetus, 
432;  Orthia,  438-9;  temple  at 
Aulis,  309;  —  at  Piraeus,  46; 
—  at  Thebes,  282,  293. 

Artemisium,  298. 

Asclepieum,  at  Athens,  122;  at 
Epidaurus,  352;  modem  sub- 
stitute for,  30-. 


Ascra,  310. 

Asia,  I,  220,  325. 

Asia    Minor,     i,    9,    239,    325, 

327- 

Asopus,  river,  in  Boeotia,  12,  153, 
270,  296,  305;  in  Malis,  317; 
in  Sicyon,  328,  329. 

Astypalaea,  7. 

Athens  (ancient),  10,  13,  436, 
442,  450 ;  after  battle  of  Salamis, 
91-125;  before  Salamis,  57- 
73;  Academy  of,  65,  119, 
147;  Acropolis  of,  60,  73, 
74-90,  92,  107,  144,  162,  173, 
184,  193,  232;  Agora,  72,  99, 
no  ff.;  Areopagus  of,  69,  72, 
99,  104  ff.,  no;  Asclepieum, 
122;  Barathrum,  109;  Callir- 
rhoe,  61,  65,  109,  133;  Cyno- 
sarges  Gymnasium,  99,  159; 
Dipylon  Gate,  113,  144,  177, 
183;  Dionysiac Theatre,  120 ff.; 
Erechtheum,  75,  77,  81,  84,  97; 
Gymnasia,  65,  118;  Lenaeum, 
61,  69;  Lyceum,  94,  99,  119; 
Lysicrates  Monument,  122; 
Market-place  (old),  65;  Nike 
temple,  77,  79;  Old  Athena 
temple,  75,  92;  olive  in,  66; 
Olympieum,  57,  65,  119  ;  Par- 
thenon, 77,  78,  80-1,  85,  87-9, 
382;  Pnyx,  108;  Propylaea,  77- 
78,  79,  85,  89,  94;  — ,  old,  65, 
76;  Prison  of  Socrates,  89,  107; 
Prytaneum,  no;  Street  of 
Tombs,  113;  Theseum,  94; 
Tholus,  no;  ^,  Modern,  29, 
126-43* 

Athena,  Alea,  364;  Archegetis, 
86;  at  Piraeus,  52;  Chalkioekos, 
438;  importance  at  Athens,  67; 
old  temple  of,  75;  statues  on 
Acropolis,  78-9;  the  Watch- 
er, 62. 

Athos,  Mt.,  II,  13. 

Attic  age,  5. 

Attica,  5-8,  13,  15,  144-70,  325- 

Aulis,  267,  307  ff. 


INDEX 


465 


Bacchus,  see  Dionysus. 
Bacchylides,  place  in  literature, 

420;  cited.  III,  123,  i8g,  243, 

411,  421. 
Bassae,  temple  at,  358,  382  ff. 
Bendis,  festival  of,  48  ff . 
Bion,  4. 
Boeotia,  4,  7,  8,  260,  266-315, 

325.  438. 
Brasidas,  436. 
Brauron,  160. 
Brennus,  318. 

Byron,  5,  79,  194;  cited,  422. 
Byzantine,    churches,     29,    404; 

Greek,  5;  ruins,  29,  404;  age, 

40,  212. 

Cadmus,  200,  272  ff. 
Caesar,  Julius,  211,  215. 
Calauria,  330,  356, 
Caligula,  304. 
Callichorus,  175. 
Callimachus,  cited,  183. 
Callirrhoe,  see  Athens. 
Calydon,  194. 

Calydonian  boar  hunt,  194,  364. 
Carthage,  43.  239,  398. 
Cassotis,  245. 
Castalia,  226,  252,  253. 
Cecrops,  59,  144. 
Cenchreae,  212. 
Ceos,  7,  95,  420,  421. 
Cephisus,  river,  Attic,  146,  148, 

152,  177,  184;  Boeotian,  260, 

265,  269,  316. 
Chaeronea,  97,  115,  198,  210,  257, 

260,  261-5,  40ij  436,  450. 
Chasia,  150. 
Chryso,  223. 
Cicero,  97;  cited,  i,  32,  181,  211, 

304,  316,  440. 
Cimon,  loo-ioi;  at  Eleusis,  182; 

in  Messenian  affairs,  428. 
Cirphis,  Mt.,  226,  253,  256,  258. 
Cithaeron,  Mt.,  12,  193,  219,  268, 

278,  280,  281,  292,  296. 
Cladeus,  river  and  god,  388,  393, 

404. 


Claudius,  304. 

Cleft  Way,  250,  2575. 

Clement,  St.,  cited,  215. 

Cleonse,  330,  331. 

Cnidus,  35,  173. 

Cnossus,  231. 

Colonists,  58,  414. 

Colonus,  24,  146-7. 

Comedy,  95. 

Common  dialect,  3. 

Conington,  cited,  71. 

Conon,  35,  56,  102;  Wall  of,  33, 

36,  39,  41,  44. 
Constantinople,  fall  of,  3;  foun- 
dation of,  196. 
Copaic  Lake,  269,  271^ 
Corcyra,  206. 
Corinna,  306. 
Corinth  (New),  201,  202;  (Old), 

201-17,  220,  436. 
Corinthian  Gulf,  5,  7,8,  9,  192  ff., 

223,  269,  324,  326,  329,  331. 
Corycian  Cave,  229,  252,  255. 
Cos,  353. 

Cotilius,  Mt.,  384. 
Cranae,  435- 
Craneum,  213. 
Cretan,   20;    Cretans,   231,  413; 

Eteo-Cretans,  14. 
Crete,  9,  15,  221,  239,  324,  325, 

326,  362,  441. 
Crimea,  58. 

Crissean  plain,  223-4,  238. 
Cumse,  2. 

Cybele,  at  Piraeus,  49. 
Cyllene,  Mt.,  8,  9,  365,  367,  369, 

376,  383. 
Cynuria,  330,  347. 
Cyprus,  I,  433- 
Cypselus,  205;  chest  of,  207. 
Cyrene,  239. 
Cythnus,  7. 

Danai,  323,  344. 

Dances,  ancient  and  modem,  137, 

139- 
Danube,  9. 
Daulis,  258,  259. 


466 


INDEX 


Decelea,  148,  150. 

Delium,  296. 

Delos,  7,  loi,  107,  163,  397;  con- 
federacy of,  100. 

Delphi,  218-49,  289,  344,  401. 

Demaratus,  179,  447. 

Demeter,  at  Olympia,  397,  410; 
in  Arcadia,  173;  in  Boeotia, 
173,  314;  Hymn  to,  174-5; 
patroness  of  marriage,  140; 
shrines  of,  30;  statue  of,  173; 
worship  of,  173  ff. 

Demosthenes,  at  Chaeronea,  262 ; 
place  in  literature,  97;  suicide 
of,  103,  356-7;  cited,  85,  92, 
118,  158,  165,  237. 

Dicaearchus,  cited,  286,  306. 

Dinarchus,  97. 

Dio  Chrysostom,  271,  399. 

Diogenes  the  Cynic,  213. 

Dionysia,  Greater,  69, 140 ;  Lesser, 

Dionysius  of  Halicamassus,  300. 

Dionysus,  at  Athens,  68  ff.,  72; 
at  Delphi,  227  ff.,  at  Eleusis 

•  (lacchus),  174,  177,  179;  at 
Olympia,  397;  at  Panopeus, 
261 ;  brings  Semele  from  Hades, 
355;  Hymnto,  i22,277;infant, 
396;  in  Frogs,  128,  129,  203; 
in  the  Marshes,  141 ;  old  cult, 
30 ;  on  Helicon,  303 ;  temple  at 
Thebes,  293. 

Diphilus,  cited,  52,  206. 

Dirce,  272,  294. 

Dodona,  14. 

Donkeys,  128-9. 

Dorians,  326  ff.,  328. 

Doric,  dialect,  398. 

Doris,  316,  328,  358. 

Easter,    festival    of,    132,     137, 

142. 
Echo,  372-3,  418. 
Egypt,  9,  433- 
Egyptians,  2. 
Eira,  426,  428. 
Eleusinia,  183. 


Eleusis,  bay  of,  48,  193;  mys- 
teries, 114,  129,  171-85;  town- 
spring  of,  134. 

Eleutheria,  313. 

Elis,  9,  373,  389,  392. 

Elton,  cited,  272. 

Epaminondas,  262,  295, 296;  char- 
acter of,  289  ff.,  363;  -death  of, 
360  ff. ;  founds  Messene,  429- 
30. 

Epicurus,  99. 

Epidaurus,  330,  351  ff. 

Epirus,  14,  270. 

Erechtheum,  see  under  Athens. 

Erechtheus,  59,  83. 

Eridanus,  river,  144. 

Eris,  apple  of,  397. 

Erymanthus,  Mt.,  8,  9,  373,  381, 
383;  river,  375. 

Etruscan,  414. 

Euboea,  7,  11,  153,  206;  Gulf  of, 
269. 

Eumelus,  208. 

Euripides,  at  Piraeus,  50;  ceno- 
taph, 55;  place  in  literature, 
95-6;  theology  of,  49,  97 ;  treat- 
ment of  Nature,  16,  26;  cited, 
26,  27,  57,  91,  114,  124,  132, 
135,  138,  160,  169,  175,  178, 
200,  210,  215,  218,  228-9, 
230-i»  233-4,  268,  274,  276, 
277,  279-81,  285-6,  292,  308, 
354,  425,  432-3»  438-9*  448. 

Euripus,  II,  307,  461. 

Eurotas,  river,  375,  432-3- 

Eurymedon,  71. 

Excavations  by,  Americans  at 
Corinth,  202,  212  ff. ;  British 
at  Sparta,  438;  French  at 
Delphi,  225,  236  ;  Germans 
at  Olympia,  404;  Greeks  at 
Thebes,  292. 

Festivals,   ancient  and   modem, 

139-142. 
Flaminius,  217. 
Funerals,  ancient    and    modem, 

129-130. 


INDEX 


467 


Games,  Isthmian,  216-17,  407; 
Nemean,  333,  407;  Olympic, 
ancient,  388  £f.,  407,  408-13; 
— ,  modern,  422-3;  Pythian, 
242  ff.,  407. 

Gauls,  at  Delphi,  235;  at  Ther- 
mopylae, 318. 

Geoffrey  de  Villehardouin,  379. 

Geraneia,  Mt.,  195,  199. 

Glaucus,  of  Chios,  244;  sea-di- 
vinity, 307. 

Goethe,  cited,  22,  251. 

Gorgias,  place  in  literature,  97; 
statue  at  Delphi,  240;  —  at 
Olympia,  403. 

Gorgopis,  Lake,  12. 

Gortys,  river,  375. 

Goulas  (Gha,  Gla),  271. 

Graces,  the,  20,  416,  420;  temple 
of,  302. 

Graeco-Roman  period,  4. 

Grylus,  360. 

Gytheion,  435. 

Hadrian,  aqueduct,  376;  at  Ath- 
ens, 60;  at  Delphi,  235;  at 
Eleusis,  182;  at  Olympia,  402; 
road  of,  199. 

Hagios  Vlasis,  260. 

Harmodius,  71. 

Hatzidakis,  G.  N-,  cited,  5. 

Helicon,  Mt.,  7,  193,  292,  301, 
302-4,  313. 

Hephaesteum,  60. 

Hephaestus,  at  Athens,  59-60; 
in  Prometheus,  23;  street,  133. 

Hera,  at  Olympia,  395-6;  in  Ar- 
golis,  329,  348;  head  of,  344. 

Heraclea,  196. 

Heracles,  at  Marathon,  159;  at 
Olympia,  393,  422;  birth,  275; 
Cretan,  393;  journey  to  Hades, 
355;  labours  of,  218-19,  333>^ 
347'  374.  376,  399;  temple  at 
Thebes,  293. 

Heraeum,  Argolis,  330,  336,  343- 
4.  357;  at  Olympia,  389,  395-8. 

Hermaea,  140. 


Hermes,  Homeric  Hymn  to, 
367  ff. ;  Ram  Bearer,  313;  stat- 
ues of,  5,  371,  396. 

Hermione,  328,  329,  330,  355. 

Herodas  (Herondas),  4. 

Herodes  Atticus,  156;  gifts  of, 
88,  241,  402. 

Herodotus,  at  Athens,  93;  piety 
of,  222,  248;  place  in  literature, 
96;  cited,  66,  82,  83,  109,  157, 
160,  166,  179,  192,  208,  222, 
267,  287,  297,  299,  319,  321, 

zz°^  343-4. 347. 366, 403.  410. 

434.  447-8- 
Hesiod,  life  and  works,  268  ff.; 
cited,    272,  296,  303,    309  ff., 

377-8. 
Hieron  of  Syracuse,  243,  413-4. 
Himera,  battle  of,  398. 
Hipparchus,  70,  328. 
Hippias,  ^2,,  70 ;  sophist,  403. 
Hippocrates,  93,  353. 
Hippocrene,  303. 
Hippodamus,  45. 
History,  3,  14,  15,  96. 
Homer,  connection  with  Argolis, 

323    ff.;    with   Athens,    67-8; 

treatment    of    nature,    18  ff.; 

cited,  18,  19,  81-2,  163,  202, 

204,  227,  267,  343,  358,  360, 

374,  377.  397.  43i.  433-4- 
Homeric  Hymns,  267;  to  Apollo, 

231 ;  to  Artemis,  323 ;  to  Diony-. 

sus,  122,  277;  to  Hermes,  3675.; 

to  Pan,  371  ff. 
Horace,  cited,  345. 
Hydarnes,  448. 

Hymettus,  Mt.,  13,  109,  145,  163. 
Hypereides,   place  in  literature, 

97;  cited,  103. 

lacchus,  see  under  Dionysus. 
Ibycus,  213. 

Ictinus,  182,  382,  383,  385,  386. 
Ida,  Mt.,  in  Asia  Minor,  11,  130; 

in  Crete,  393. 
Ilissus,   river,   27,   28,   125,   133, 

144,  422. 


46S 


INDEX 


Inachus,  river,  332. 

lonta,  97. 

Ionian,  14;  sea,  383. 

Isaeus,  97, 

Ismenus,  river,  272,  294. 

Isocrates,  place  in  literature,  97; 

cited,  59,  181,  198,  450. 
Isthmus  of  Corinth,  10,  144,  193, 

201,  215,  324,  334,  353,  436. 
Italy,  58,  220. 
Itea,  223,  226. 
Ithaca,  231,  432. 
Ithome,  Mt.,  8,  383,  426,  428. 

Jebb,    Sir  Richard,  cited,  57-8, 

103,  413- 
Julian  the  Apostate,  235-6,  403. 

Kalamata,  10,  425-7. 
Kallidromos,  Mt.,  317. 
Kapraena,  261. 
Karaiskakis,  Place,  30,  36. 
Karytaena,    29,   378-9;   Geoffrey 

de,  379. 
Kastri,  224  ff. 
Kephisia,  148,  152. 
Kerata,  Mt.,  boundary  between 

Attica  and  Megara,  8,  173,  195. 
Kronos  Hill,  388  ff. 
Kydias,  329. 

Lacedaemon,  8,  426,  431. 
'Laconia,  8,  324,  327,  426,  431, 

435-. 
Laconian  Gulf,  431. 
Ladon,  river,  375,  389,  390. 
Langada  Gorge,  426. 
Languap^e,    Greek,    3  ;    dialects, 

414;  modern,  5. 
Larisa  of  Argos,  325,  327,  330. 
Lasus,  328. 
Laurium,  160-1. 
Leake,  cited,  385-6. 
Lebadeia,  301,  313. 
Lechaeum,  212,  216. 
Leonidas,  298,  317-321. 
Lema,  330,  340-7. 
Lesbos,  131,  441. 


Leuctra,  289,  296,  430. 
Lindus,  29,  419. 
Lipari  Islands,  10. 
Literature,  Greek,  3-5;  93-100 
Locris,  7,  14,  193,  223,  226;  Epi- 

cnemidian,  316. 
Lucian,  4;  cited,  39,  53,  54,  68, 

73,  88,  120,  213,  331,  356,  390, 

402,  403,  408,  440. 
Lucius,  Mummius,  211. 
Lycabettus,  Mt.,  144. 
Lycaeus,  Mt.,  8,   367,   373,  378, 

383- 
Lycosura,  359,  364. 
Lycurgus,  lawgiver,  446;  orator, 

97- 
Lyric  poetry,  95. 
Lysander,  102. 
Lysias,   place   in   literature,   97; 

cited,  47,  76,  III,  149. 
Lysippus,  244,  329. 
Lysis,  disciple  of  Socrates,  140; 

of  Tarentum,  291. 

Macedon,  15,  96,  100,  356,  401, 

436. 
Macedonia,  2,  239. 
Macedonian  rule,  39,   102,   210, 

391,  394,  401,  436. 
Maenalus,  Mt.,  373. 
Malea,  324,  431. 
Malis,  316. 
Malian  Gulf,  7. 
Mantinea,  289,  359  ff.,  364. 
Marathon,  70  ff.,    103,   157-60, 

298;  — race,  159,  422. 
Marathonisi,  435. 
Markopoulo,  160. 
Meander,  river,  328. 
Mediterranean,  i,  3,  40,  390. 
Megalopolis,  9,  359,  378,   382, 

385^  429- 
Megara,   8,   48,    164,    192-9;  — 

Hyblaea,  196. 
Megarid,  144,  164. 
Megistias,  321. 
Melicertes,  200. 
Melos,  5,  162,  326. 


INDEX 


469 


Menander,  death,  4  ;  friend  of 
Theophrastus,  99  ;  place  in 
literature,  96 ;  plays  of  at 
Piraeus,  50 ;  tomb,  55 ;  cited,  49, 
55,  112,  121,  152,  449. 

Menidhi,  137,  150,  151. 

Mesogia,  160. 

Mesolonghi,  30,  194. 

Messene,  429. 

Messenia,  5,  8,  13,  14,  425-30; 
Bay  of,  10,  13. 

Messina,  Straits  of,  10. 

Midas,  239. 

Midea,  325. 

Minoa,  in  Megarid,  195. 

Minyae,  14,  302.       ' 

Mistra,  29,  433. 

Moluriad  Rock,  200. 

Monemvasia,  29. 

Morea,  8;  dukes  of,  404. 

Moschus,  4. 

Munychia»  33,  41*  42,  45.  5°* 
55- 

Murray,  Gilbert,  cited,  132,  214, 
274  ff.,  439. 

Musaea,  313. 

Mycalessus,  314. 

Mycenae,  11,  319,  325,  327,  330, 

331.  332,  334ff.,  351- 
Mycenaean  civilization,  182,  292, 

325-6. 
Myconos,  7. 
Myron,  78. 

Mysteries,  see  under  Eleusis. 
Mytika,  361. 

Nature,  Greek  treatment  of,  15- 

28. 
Nauplia,  30,  324,  325,  330,  348. 
Navarino,  425. 
Naxos,  7,  13,  30. 
Neda,  river,  382,  383,  384. 
Nedon,  river,  Gorge  of,  426. 
Nemea,  330,  332  ff. 
Nemesis,  154  ff. 
Nereid,  255-56,  397. 
Nero, at  Corinth,  213;  at  Delphi, 

235 ;    at    Isthmus,   215,   217  ; 


at  Olympia,  391,  402;  at  Thes- 
piae,  304. 

Nike,  by  Paeonius,  400;  of  Samo- 
thrace,  161;  temple  of,  see  un- 
der Athens.  % 

Nisaea,  in  Megarid,  195. 

Nomian  Mts.,  373,  383. 

Norton,  Charles  Eliot,  cited,  16. 

(Eta,  Mt.,  7,  316,  326. 
Olympia,  9,  243,  382,  388-424. 
Olympus,  Mt.,  6, 14,  15,  370,  404, 

423. 
Onatas,  386. 
Oratory,  96. 
Orchomenus,  in  Arcadia,  365;  in 

Boeotia,  270,  302. 
Oropus,  153. 
Orphic  School,  174. 
Ossa,  Mt.,  7. 
Othrys  Mts.,  7. 

Paeonius,  400. 

Paestum,  2,  357. 

Palermo,  10.  • 

Pallantium,  360,  364. 

Pan,  at  Athens,  72-3;  Homeric 
Hymn  to,  371  ff.;  in  modern 
folk-lore,  255;  at  Delphi,  229; 
at  Psyttaleia,  166;  at  Thebes, 

293- 

Panathensea,  67,  71, 135, 137, 140. 

Panopeus,  260. 

Parmenides,  97. 

Parnassus,  Mt.,  7,  193,  223,  225, 
226,  227,  232,  234,  253,  254, 
256,  258,  259,  261,  292,  301, 
316,  326,  329,  353,  393. 

Parnes,  Mt.,  7,  144,  148,  153. 

Parnon,  Mt.,  8,  432. 

Paros,  29,  386. 

Parthenius,  Mt.,  373. 

Parthenon,  see  under  Athens. 

Patras,  192,  194-5,  392. 

Paul,  St.,  210,  212,  395;  cited, 
106,  217,  407. 

Pausanias,  general,  298,  299  ; 
topographer,  cited,  76,  88,  145, 


470 


INDEX 


150, 165, 183, 207, 235, 241, 264, 
265,  271,  289,  292,  293,  301, 
304,  309,  310,  319,  329,  336, 
346,  352,  353,  360,  361-2,  374, 

•  375.  376,  384,  390»  405,  411, 
428,  430,  440. 

Pegasus,  204,  214,  303. 

Peirene,  204,  207,  214. 

Pelasgians,  14,  82,  324,-344,  347. 

Pelion,  Mt.,  7. 

Peloponnesian  War,  34,  10 1,  153, 
288,  300,  429. 

Peloponnesus,  8,  15. 

Pelops,  393,  399,  405,  412. 

Peneius,  river,  7. 

Pentedactylon,  Mt.,  432. 

Pentelicus,  Mt.,  5,  7,  11,  13,  25, 
132,  144,  148,  152,  153,  159. 

Periander,  206  ff. 

Pericles,  age  of,  394;  death,  115; 
at  Eleusis,  182;  Megarian  de- 
cree of,  198;  oratory  of,  96, 
108;  political  influence  of,  34, 
56,  97,  100,  loi,  104. 

Persephone,  355  ,~  worship  of, 
171  ff. 

Persian  Wars,  15,  96,  100,  197, 
210,  317,  330. 

Phaeacia,  134. 

Phalerum,  45,  125,  132,  395. 

Pheneus,  365;  lake  of,  375-6. 

Pherae,  425. 

Pherecrates,  cited,  82,  266. 

Phidias,  135,  244,  293,  399. 

Phigalia,  382. 

Phigalians,  383,  386. 

Philip,  39,  115,  451;  at  Chae- 
ronea,  262;  in  Delphic  Am- 
phictyony,  224 ;  of  Hellenic 
blood,  102,  391;  statues  of, 
240,  401. 

Philopoemen,  361-3. 

Philosophy,  97  ff.  ;  closing  of 
schools  of,  3. 

Phlius,  328,  329,  330. 

Phocis,  14,  .223,  260,  316. 

Phoenicia,  324,  433. 

Phoenicians,  127,  273,  330. 


Phoenicides,  cited,  84. 

Pholoe,  Mt.,  373-4. 

Phryne,  240,  304. 

Pieria,  368. 

Pindar,  age  of,  31;  art  of,  288; 
in  Athens,  95;  descent  of,  271; 
house  of,  293;  place  in  litera- 
ture, 268;  treatment  of  nature, 
20-1;  cited,  20-1,  no,  114, 
122,  124,  156,  186,  189,  190, 
191,  204,  210,  218,  237,  243, 
249,  266,  275,  288,  291,  299, 
302,  333y  358,  388,  408,  410, 
411,  412,  415,  420,  432. 

Pindus,  Mt.,  7,  13. 

Piraeus,  3o,''32-56,  85,  100,  102, 
145,  186,  187. 

Pisistratus,  64  ff.,  174,  182. 

Plataea,7i,9i,  296-301,  313,  320. 

Plato,  Academy  of,  119,  147; 
age  of,  39;  cave  of,  109;  legend 
of,  164;  opinion  of  Kydias, 
330;  place  in  philosophy,  98; 
treatment  of  nature,  28;  cited, 
28,  46-7,  74,  ro7,  125,  139, 
144,  182,  185,  198,  205,  307, 
352,  414,  420,  449,  450. 

Plistus,  river,  226,  234,  242,  252, 

253- 

Plutarch,  4;  birthplace,26i ;  char- 
acter of,  268;  cited,  64,  88,  no, 
169,  213,  240,  267,  301,  353, 
356. 

Polybius,   cited,   360,   361,   363, 

437- 

Polygnotus,  129,  241. 

Poros,  356. 

Poseidon,  at  Athens,  59;  in  Ar- 
golis,  348;  in  Elis,  390;  tem- 
ple of  at  Calauria,  356;  — at 
Paestum,  2;— atSunium,  162. 

Potidaea,  119. 

Prasiae,  160. 

Pratinas,  328. 

Praxilla,  329. 

Praxiteles,  5,  244,  293,  304,  364, 
396. 

Propylaea,  see  under  Athens. 


INDEX 


471 


Ptoon,  Mt.,  269,  292,  301,  313. 
Pylos,  231,  425,  429. 
Pythagoras,  97,  291. 

Rhamnus,  154  ff. 

Rhodes,    i,    29,    127,    135,   419; 

Colossus  of,  397. 
Rogers,  B.  B.,  cited,  70,  132,  141, 

161,  179,  181,  251. 
Roman  rule,  39-40,  172,  211-12, 

391,  394,  402,  414- 
Romans,  204,  362. 

Salamis,  48,  62,  68,  144,  353, 
35  7>  399;  battle  of,  71,  91,  103, 
165-70,  188,  209,  299,  398. 

Samos,  70,  99. 

Sappho,  read  by  Solon,  64 ;  treat- 
ment of  nature,  18  ff.,  cited, 
18,  19,  20,  21,  136,  380. 

Saronic  Gulf,  8,  32,  41, 163,  193, 

324,  353'  354- 

Scamander,  134. 

Scironian  Cliffs,  199  ff.,  354. 

Scopas,  293,  364,  386. 

Selinus,  398. 

Seriphos,  7. 

Servius  Sulpicius,  cited,  32,  199. 

Shelley,  cited,  25,  56,  148,  368. 

Sicily,  I,  9,  10,  15,  58,  239,  328, 
388,  390;  Sicilian  Greeks,  391, 
398,  414  ;  —  expedition,  37, 
Toi,  187. 

Sicyon,  329. 

Simmias,  cited,  150. 

Simonides,  at  Athens,  70,  95 ;  poet 
laureate,  420;  rival  of  Lasus, 
328;  cited,  64,  136,  157,  158, 
200,  299-300,  320,  321,  349.  _ 

Socrates,  on  Acropolis,  76  ff. ;  in 
Assembly,  108;  at  Delium, 
296;  at  Isthmian  Games,  217; 
by  Ilissus,  27;  in  Gymnasia, 
119,  140;  in  Piraeus,  46  ff. ; 
place  in  philosophy,  98-9. ' 

Solon,  in  Egypt,  2;  influence  in 
Athens,  58  ff. ;  statue  at  Sala- 
mis, 165;  cited,  62,  63,  283. 


Solos,  376. 

Sophists,  94,  96,  97. 

Sophocles,  place  in  literature,  95 ; 
tomb  of,  150;  treatment  of  na- 
ture, 24  ff. ;  cited,  24,  116,  140, 
146,  163,  171,  178,  222,  240, 
250,   268,   276,   281-3,    286-7, 

303.  335»  341,  405-7»  432. 
Sparta,     8,     10,    13,    100,     102, 

153'  239,  288,  425,  429,  431- 

451. 
Spercheius,  river,  316,  318. 
Sphacteria,  429. 
Sphinx,  Mt.,  292. 
Sterling,  John,  cited,  320,  404. 
Strabo,  cited,  234,  271,  355,  390, 
Stymphalus,  365;  lake  of,  376. 
Styx,  377. 

Suetonius,  cited,  215. 
Sunium,  161  ff. ;  356. 
Swinburne,  cited,  106,  424. 
Symonds,  J.  A.,  cited,  114,  136, 

349- 
Syracusans,  38,  102,  414. 
Syracuse,  10,  38,  43,  206,  414. 

Taenarum,  208,  431. 

Tanagra,  296,  305-6,  313. 

Tatoi,  153. 

Tauropolia,  140. 

Taygetus,  Mt.,  8,  13,  383,  389, 
426,  432,  445. 

Tegea,  359,  363-4'  435- 

Telesilla,  329. 

Tempe,  Vale  of,  7,  245. 

Tenedos,  388. 

Tenos,  7. 

Terpander,  cited,  441-2. 

Thaletas,  441-2. 

Thebes,  15, 229,  239,  266-95, 436. 

Themistocles,  fortification  of  Pi- 
raeus, 33,  34,  36;  policy  of, 
44,  loi ;  at  Olympia,  361;  at 
Salamis,  166;  tomb  of,  41. 

Theodosius,  236,  403. 

Theocritus,  4,  16,  258;  treatment 
of  nature,  cited,  28. 

Theognis,  196-7. 


472 


INDEX 


Theophrastus,  99;  cited,  51,  62, 
121,  140. 

Thera,  326. 

Theramenes,  102. 

Therapne,  433. 

Thermopylae,  7,  9,  298,  316-22, 
360. 

Theseus,  in  art  and  literature,  60, 
399;  Bacchylides  on,  95;  city 
of,  104,  107,  146;  in  Hippo- 
lytus,  354  ff. ;  Isthmian  Games, 
217;  the  Panathenaea,  67,  137; 
return  from  Crete,  79,  163. 

Thesmophoria,  140, 

Thespiae,  304-5. 

Thespians,  288,  313,  319. 

Thespis,  63,  156. 

Thessaly,  6,  7,  13,  14,  i3S>  270, 
368,  435- 

Thoricus,  160. 

Thrace,  2,  5,  171,  220. 

Thrasybulus,  149. 

Thriasian  Plain,  173,  179. 

Thucydides,  historian,  at  Delphi, 
248  ;  place  in  literature,  96 ; 
cited,  37,  91,  115,  116,  216, 
267,  289,  300,  326,  335,  360, 
429, 437, 446-7;  statesman,  loi. 

Tiberius,  391,  402. 

Timotheus,  cited,  168,  362. 

Tiryns,  324,  325,  327,  330,  336, 

348-51. 

Tragedy,  95. 


Treton,  Mt.,  331. 
Tripolis,  360,  373,  375. 
Triptolemus,  174. 
Troezen,  330.353  5.,  357- 
Troy,  10,  27,  134,  336,  337,  338, 

^  343,  357. 

Tyrtaeus,  cited,  427,  428,  443. 

Vaphio,  435. 
Vari,  163-4. 
Virgil,  310,  364. 

Way,  cited,  139,  218,  229. 
Wordsworth,  cited,  17,  21. 

Xenophon,  place  in  literature, 
96;  treatment  of  Epaminondas, 
289;  cited,  46,  51,  149,  267, 
289,  360,  374,  392,  446. 

Xerxes,  at  Plataea,  298;  at  Sala- 
mis,  165;  at  Thermopylae,  317; 
invasion  of  Delphi,  252;  —  of 
Greece,  447. 

Zacynthus,  231. 

Zanes,  401. 

Zeno,  99. 

Zeus,  14,  23,  27;  birth  of,  367, 
393  ;  at  Lebadeia,  301  ;  at 
Nemea,  333;  at  Olympia,  392, 
393,  395,  396,  423;  at  Piraeus, 
52;  temple  at  Olympia,  398- 
401. 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U  .   S   .  A 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY, 
BERKELEY 


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